The Art of Loving

When people ask you why they left, you always give the same answer- ‘They said I was too much and that my love was too overwhelming’. They leave you wondering if you had been loving the wrong way all along; giving away too much and not knowing when to stop. They leave you wondering if your love was too fierce and passionate that it scared people away, if it was too flamboyant that it stole away the beauty of sunsets and evening skies, if it was too overwhelming that it made them drown, instead of helping them stay afloat. That night, you crossed out the word ‘subtlety’ from your old Oxford dictionary until the page tore.

Three nights later, you sat down to learn the art of learning how much to give, and not give anymore than that- in other words, ‘the art of measuring love’. You poured pints of your love into small packets and weighed them on a scale, leaving no room for even so much as an extra drop. But the weighing scale was rusted, the threads sealing the packets were loose and soggy; you ended up overfilling most packets and spilling your love all over the place. Feeling frustrated, you emptied all the packets into the basin. You felt tears sting your eyes as you watched your love quietly wriggle through the drain holes. For the first time ever, you realize it is too beautiful to be contained within small, clumsy packets, too precious to be drained away like that. You gave up on learning the art of measuring love and fell into a deep slumber. That night if your mom had peeped into your room to check on you, she would have found a slight, peaceful smile across your face.

Six nights later, you had an epiphany — your love isn’t meant to be confined in romantic relationships, you’re not meant to lead a life where you spend the nights sealing love into small packets and spend the days giving those packets and taking pride in all of your accurate measurements.

You realize your love is meant for greater things, meant to reach many, many people out there, especially the ones who have known what personal space is and have had plenty of that all their lives, and all that they want now is love, the kind that smothers, the kind it is too much, too overwhelming, the kind that makes their world seem so small and crowded. And they know nothing about the measurements, nothing about the wrong way of loving and they despise the word subtlety more than you.

It’s time you realized that love isn’t always about being the one to someone, but about being someone to a lot of people. You could be a parent, a sibling, a good friend, just a passerby who makes them feel special on a random day.

Also, here’s a sweet reminder for you: You’re not loving the wrong way. There’s no wrong way. There’s no right way, either. There are no benchmarks, no parameters to qualify it nor quantify it. So, just go ahead and love abundantly, without knowing when to stop, without knowing how much is too much.

Thanks for reading! Have a great day!

Originally published on https://themusingsofachaoticmind.blogspot.com/?m=1