love is a choice

Sometimes there are no happy endings. No matter what, I’ll be losing something, someone. But maybe that’s what it all comes down to. Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what temptations or obstacles stand in the way. And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than never having a choice to make at all.

-          “Love the One You are With” Emily Giffin

            These days, the definition of love is very varied, and sadly sometimes, to the point that it is idealized. Love is compared to a fairy tale, akin to having flutters and butterflies in one’s stomach, fantastic, and magical.  But love, as beautiful and amazing as it is, has its ups and downs. Truth be told, love is never perfect, and you can’t always expect sweet and melodious music playing as the background. Still and all, even with the imperfections, shortcomings, and flaws, you still love and that is a choice you decide to make.

            In love there will be days when you will have fights and disagreements- petty, trivial, serious and grave. Even so, no matter how difficult and troublesome it is, you both make up and reconcile, because you believe that love is worth fighting for. As the song goes “I won’t give up on us, even the sky gets rough”, and despite the hassle and bustle of the relationship, you are willing to give love a go, and you decide to stay and make amends, because it is simply not worth giving up.

            No matter how much we try, there will be times when we will fail in the eyes of the one we love. Sometimes it’s intentional or maybe a result of the circumstances. And when this happens, love allows you to be humble, to forgive, to forget and not to hold grudges. True love does not harbour any bitterness and does not seek revenge. With that, love is willing to start all over again and again  - anew, afresh, even better than ever.

            With the imperfections that come with humanity is the thinking that someone may still be better out there. Even with the idea that someone is way handsome or prettier, more intelligent, more successful, more caring and sweet, the moment you promised to love the person you are with, you make all efforts to guarantee he/she is the one, and no one else will ever be. Truth is, there will really always be someone that seems to be better than the person you love. But love is also about sticking with the person you promise to love forever, even if you are old, wrinkly, overweight, toothless, and gray. Sadly, infidelity happens because we allow our discontentment to devour our system. It’s then that we start to look for someone else, without realizing that we already have the 80% of what we are looking for, and still wander searching for the missing 10%. Loyalty does not come easily. It is sometimes a painstaking process one has to endure with all the temptations hovering around. Loving the one you are with is an effort we all have to make. We stay in love and in the relationship because we choose to. It is always a product of choice and not of circumstance.

            And when the spark and magic starts to fade away and die down, what are we supposed to do? Is it something to mope about, to be embittered, and to soon leave? The reality is the magic and spark of love is likewise a product of our actions- with consistent and persistent effort. This applies to male and female alike. When the harmonious music decreases in volume, maybe it’s time to make our own music. Which goes to say, we make an effort to make the music, spark, and magic keep blazing and aflame, even with the test of time, and all the obstacles couples have to go through.

            At the end of the day, love is always a choice. It is not just a feeling, for there will always be a time when feelings mellow down, although may not necessarily change. We stay in love because we want to and have to constantly live by the promise we make the day we allow ourselves to fall in love. And love gets more beautiful that even if you fall out of love, you stand up and decide to stay, because you know that love is not just about feelings, but of actions. Love is a verb we have to act upon- everyday, as it goes in the wedding vows: through sickness and health, richer and poorer, till death do us part. Now that is the magic of true love as it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.