Toronto, Ontario, Canada – For the last 17 years, I have read about the topic of love. I have looked at it from formal research, popular opinion, professional and social circles, and of course, my own experiences.
I have sat with it over perspectives on feeling love and figuring out what it means to feel passion. It seems to me feeling real passion for another at decidedly marked times along the way is unforgettable. Whether it is socially acceptable to admit it, it can happen when we are single and when we are involved.
Passion is not mutually exclusive to our relationship status. It may be with more than one person at once. It is a true roller coaster ride of inexplicable and conflicting emotions indeed. When true passion happens along my way, it can guide most of my decisions; burn in secrecy, or permeate my every action and word.
I often refer to one of my favourite fables from a more recent well-known movie: The excerpt of the “boat people”; although all is lost in trauma, a trend surfaces of persons still weighing out the dilemma regarding a ‘passion’ versus already being in a dutiful relationship.
I do not think there is any one true formula for explaining passion, for how long it lasts, or how often it occurs in a lifetime.
I am uncertain if I fully adopt the Hollywood meta-narrative or social psychology theory of who truly falls in love is the ‘lucky one’ (and the ‘lucky ones’ are who stay in love, even if the passion wanes). What I do know is we love…that I love…that I have been loved. Passionate love triggers a basic need; a need as true as requiring shelter, water and food. It is not about the ‘how’ or ‘why’: It is more about the ‘when’; the fact that it happens.
Whether or not it is returned, I have felt true passion for another. I used to over-think whether my passion was meaningful or meaningless; whether the other’s passion for me had any ‘true’ meaning. More recently, I think about savouring it for what it is…and let to where we will go from her just ‘be’.
What seems to ring true for me is the advice I have received that what is most meaningful is friendship; deep passionate friendship, regardless of lover or plutonic other…a deep, meaningful, peaceful and needful love. I am most thankful for my friendships; and my path of learning how to be a true friend to others.
I think I am adopting a newer, different story about love; regardless of how I can best define it. I often say ‘family’ is ‘you and who is important to you’. For me, this is how I best define love: The ones with whom I feel the safest; the most at ease; the most welcoming in my life, and the most welcomed…where I feel the most ‘at home’. When I am told I am loved, I value it the most deeply.
Thank you for this love; thank you for the most meaningful lessons it teaches me. For even when it is the painful, I have loved and I have been loved. Thank you, my dearests, for what I am learning. May I continue loving endlessly, and may I always feel loved by the most special people in my life. Thank you for teaching me all about love. (BY MICHAEL BEST)
