To Love or Not To Love

My friends from the Blondie Club were discussing, via email which they cc to me, their love life (which is basically non-existent currently....due to, I feel, the strange criterias they set for their would be boyfriends/partners). She Who Should Be Blonde has a penchant for super brainy types who are clean cut - "no brawny sweaty macho guys for me" she says. I have seen 2 of the chaps she has a major crush on. They are both very fair, very thin, have hair plastered onto their heads with the help of brylcream (darn, how do you spell this?) with perfect center parting, are so brainy/intellectual that one would get triple orgasms just listening to them speak. Yes super nerdy. They are the guys whom brawny sweaty macho types would kick sand at on the beach. Yes guys, super nerds are now considered sexy.....so stop pumping iron and go to the nearest bookstore/library and invest in some Sartre/Voltaire/Machiavelli/Achillini (learn how to spell and pronounce these names properly first).

My other friend, She Who Should Be Blonder, has the hots for a renown adventurer who climbs exotic mountains and produces documentaries on his adventures for the National Geographic. Yes she knows him personally - she's not just fantasizing about someone on telly. They indulge in the occasional telephone sex as he is too busy travelling around the world discovering weird & wonderful things.

And these 2 wonder why they haven't had a date or a boyfriend for ages....Ahem, yes...the pot shouldn't be calling the kettle black. I myself have harboured a secret fetish for men who have world domination in their agenda. I have always found Benjamin Netanyahu very sexy....Please take note that President Bush is not on my list of Hot & Sexy Guys to fantasize about. Let me rephrase that "intelligent ruthless men who have world domination on their agenda".

In the emails between these 2 Blondies, I discover that She Who Should Be Blonde has only gone through 1 heartbreak and as they debate over which is better, to only suffer a heartbreak once or many times ....considering they are in their 30s, they decided to seek expert opinion - moi's . "What do you think S...heartbroken over and over again or once... which would apply to you or would you have opted for if you had the choice?".

My first thought was to answer in a flippant light manner. Somehow this response came out instead - below is my reply to her:-

"My heart has been shattered to a million pieces many times over, each time I heal, I am able to love deeper for such is the beauty of loving and losing and loving again. If you don't allow yourself to let go and experience this repeated joy and pain then you don't allow yourself to live and to know who you really are.

I used to have set criterias on what I'm looking for in a man. Then I met a man who didn't fit into any of these criterias, someone I cannot even imagine I would have a relationship with - my Mr Italian. He became my idea of the Perfect Man. Impeccable manners, never makes promises he cannot keep, worldly, witty, intelligent, extremely successful and powerful... but no he does not read Oscar Wilde. After 7 years of obsession over him, I let him go. But not before I made a vow to God that I would never marry anyone except him. Now I am afraid that God might have listened to me...as they say, be careful what you wish for, God may grant you your wish. Something unexpected happened 5 years after that, I fell in love again, even deeper than I did for Mr Italian (which I thought could not be possible). This time it's what my soul fell in love with. Then I truly discovered who I am. It was purely spiritual. We understood that God did not ordain us to be together in this life and we accepted it. But that doesn't stop us from loving each other and yet, continue to get on with our lives. There was nothing to 'start' nor to 'end'. It just is...

The thing about falling in love, loving someone and allowing yourself to be loved is not about ending up with each other happily ever after. It is about the courage we have to experience it. It is not about owning someone or having him reciprocate your feelings. It is a journey of discovery of who you are. Another person can never complete you. Only you can do that for yourself. These people you fall in love with, these experiences you go through will help you find and complete yourself, for in the end, we return to Him, our Creator. But we do not return to Him incomplete, we return with our soul complete knowing who we are and where we come from. I finally learnt from these experiences how God loves and want to be loved - unconditionally. And that is the whole journey in Sufism. They have a saying in Sufism - you must die before you die. And you must die many deaths before you actually physically leave this earth. This is what they mean. Your Soul cannot return to your Creator until it has gone through the raging fires of Love.

I know you asked me a simple question and did not expect such an answer. To me it is a serious question on Life Itself. So go ahead. Stop insulating yourself. Get rid of your criterias. Let go and live. Stand at the edge of the cliff and take the plunge. Trust only God. Trust only your heart and not your logical thinking. It is through our heart that He communicates with us. It is never logical. S..."

Let me quote one of my favourite poets Rabindranath Tagore:-

"TRUST LOVE EVEN if it brings sorrow. Do not close your heart.

......The heart is only for giving away with a tear and a song, my love

......Pleasure is frail like a dewdrop, while it laughs it dies. But sorrow is strong and abiding. Let sorrowful love wake in your eyes.

.....The lotus blooms in the sight of the sun, and loses all that it has. It would not remain in bud in the eternal winter mist........"

I found out a number of people whom I may not know personally read my Blog. If you want to give your comments privately or just ask me something and don't want to post it here then feel free to email me at :
toadexodus@gmail.com

I don't mind if its anonymous.