*This blog is a shout out to my friends, Denis and Denise. Your friendship is precious. *

The Brevity of Love

Anyone seen Love Actually? I happen to own that DVD. I bought it for a whopping C$7. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.

Few weeks ago, I watched it with my boyfriend and our married friends. It was definately an eye opener to watch the movie again after about a year of not watching it. Anyone who has watched it will know the multiple story lines in it, stemming from cheating lip locking wives to overtly friendly American girls from Wisconsin.

The mains issue of the movie was the hasty representation of love that it potrayed. Marital decisions done without regard to language and communication barriers, young 8 year olds embarking on the "trip of their lifetime" and porno actors who marry, and are conservative about it. Please. Anyone in their right mind would know that love does not carve that route.

Now, I could be like the Apostle Paul and rant like he did to the Corinthians, but I choose to put it in the language of our everyday life.

Love does not see Mr. Now as better than Mr. Then. Love is being able to accept your partner based on their own merit, without saying "But he treated me better than the last guy".

Love is strong. It is being able to say no and to accept a no. This happens more in the particulars.

Love is respectful, it is knowing when to tell your partner to take time off from the relationship and aid them in taking care of their other relationship. The main shortfalling of many dating couples is that when they continue to spend more and more time together, they neglect the very friends and family members who made them who they are, made them who their partner first was attracted to. When couples start to put too much hope in another falible human being, it is the sweet recipie for emotional let downs.

Love is being able to accept the person as is, and not changing them. I'm sure everyone has heard the adage "Men marry in hopes that the woman doesn't change, and women marry in the hope that the man will change". What a miserable world. Change is to be had together, and at the same time, change should not happen to the core fundamental aspects of a person. Couples of the world would have less heartache if each could accept the other, flaws and all.

Most of all, Love is knowing what you want, what your partner wants, and doing the right steps to get that, no matter how painful, how far away the rewards look. Ability for delayed gratification is a marked sign of maturity.

The Brevity of Love is not of love at all, rather the immediate need for self gratification.

Will I ever be ready?

We are told that there is a time for things, a time to stand and fight, a time to let the argument go, a time to be happy, a time to mourn, a time to move on, a time to love, and time to marry and a time to bury those who you love.

I moved away from home at the tender age of 17. At that moment in time, I felt ready. I was ready to go to this new place called Canada, to enter Grade 12 and to expand my horizons and stretch myself. It was an experience, that was for sure.

Grade 12 was over rated. the Cliques, the adolescent swearing and the teachers who had favorites. It was not more so these elements, but it was the sheer fact that I was not a part of this established community.

Yet, throughout my whole life, I have learned to keep myself at bay, to not fully emerse myself in groups of people. Freud struck home when he said that human relations are the very source of immense pleasure and pain.

Freshman year was a hard year, 2nd year was the darkest year of my university "career", 3rd year was my limbo on earth and 4th year is the reconciliation of my past. I have suceeded in negotiating my adult life, but I'm having issues negotiating my future.

The nail in my coffin is not being able to be with my parents. My sister and I are here together, and together we will make our own family. But the knowledge that we will no longer be able to share our life like we used to is heart wrenching. One day, I hope to marry, and I know I will have to leave my family to make a family with my partner, but a part of me is unable to get enough of my family. The 11pm ventures to the heart of KL, the little jokes that we share, the waking up on Saturday mornings hearing my parents laughing and talking to each other in their room, the smell of peanut butter toast and coffee on Sunday late morning. Ribbons of memory that caress my heart brief enough for me to feel its tenderness but enough to keep me longing for more.

Nothing could've prepared me at 17 to realize that the last night at home that was agonizingly slow was the last that I should have wanted to go slower.

Now, my sister and I here are family, and I will do everything that God requires of me, but the child of me wants my parents. The child of me wants to be able to sit on their lap and know that everything will be ok. Their Love, their Pride, their Support and their Strength is ... is there ever a word that can enbody this? The english language proves itself incredibly insufficient.

All my life, my family have moved to many a places, and I counted these more than blessing. The moves we made weren't hard on me, that because I was moving with Home. My consolation is in the fact that the Love that I have for my parents are minute in comparison to Christ's of them. I can't find an answer for myself. I am fallible. This much I know, Christ is my answer.