What is true and complete companionship?
Could it be that one finds it (or should I say stumbles upon it while going about one’s good, old mundane life) as the fairy tales would have us believe… magically??? Love at first sight!! Though the characters involved have absolutely no idea that this it – they eventually figure through what I call the “missing shoe” syndrome. Remember the missing shoe? The One Thing that Cinderella leaves behind as a sign from above for her Prince Charming. We all have our versions of the shoe… the One Thing that makes us realize (or at least our endorphin influenced brain would like to perceive as “realization”) that this is the One!! My soulmate a.k.a “the one I was meant to be with”. As soon as the One Thing is revealed, we think back to how “we always knew somewhere in some cobwebbed corner of our sub conscious mind” that he/she was the ONE.
Could it be that true and complete companionship is only as magical as one wants it to be, one makes it out to be? Is Love just a hormonal reaction? A Survival Instinct for mankind? Are we truly monogamous at heart (or to be clear psychologically)?? Is Love what keeps us from wandering away from the ties of commitment? From looking, evaluating or window shopping again for a person of the opposite sex (or in many cases, the same sex) in “that” way? Do we need Love to keep us alive?
It is a very fundamental and interesting question for me. I believe it is. I wake up in the morning smiling because I believe I am in love and that I am equally loved (hope against hope). Love gives me a reason to get through my day and get back home. It gives me a reason to cook - hunger is also a good enough reason but it does not inspire me to cook exotic things – whether the exotic experiments end up (sadly) charred/undone/unset/wobbly or just plain bad. It makes me write long emails with love song lyrics which describe the state of my heart on that day. It makes my heart thump with joy and makes me break into a smile for no reason. It makes my day, my night and every weekend worth waiting for. It makes me want to be beautiful ( to whatever extent a clumsy, shy and awkward person can be) – hey, hey I didn’t say that I manage to be successfully beautiful but it at least makes me want J Basically all said and one and no matter how pathetic it sounds, it makes me alive. Makes me aware. Makes me desire. Makes me better. Makes me introspective. Makes me emotional. Makes me adventurous. Makes me!
What more could one ask for from life in terms of love that is? It might be love for a person for me and love for sports for another. Which brings me back to my first question. What is true and complete companionship? Does it have to be with a person or even necessarily an animate object? Can it be books? The Internet? Sports? TV?
Before I found this extraordinary love that I have gone on and on about above, I lived my life through books – more accurately because of books. Without them to keep my sanity – I would have been a mental case (Ang Jolie from Girl, Interrupted type) a long time back. I could even go the extent of saying that books are my one true and great love (no offence to the love of my life). I have loved them from the day I learnt to read. From that day I realized that my life is not ordinary, I am not ordinary as long as I am in somebody’s else’s world. Or I am ordinary as I wanted to be. I found my Terabithia. Everyday a different one though J I grew up in a relatively boring world with relatively boring (but kind and loving) people. I wanted adventure. I craved it. I wanted to be a different person each day and my wish was made true by any book I read. So you will understand me (and pardon me as well if you are a lover of non-fiction) when I say that fiction is the only reading material I like. I want to have nothing much to do with reality when I am in ‘my world which is not my own’.
I go to bed night after night dying to read. I want to get back home to read. I wish I could carry a book around to fill up gaps in social occasion when I am bored out of my skull (I used to do it as a kid and my mom used to scold every single time) J There is also this person I love. Who is fun, funny, charming and loving. He is the one I am going to spend the rest of my life with and the one I want to be with (of all the human beings I know). But even he is unable to fill certain spaces in my life which only my books can. I was upset about it to start with (the upset bit started ‘cos I was worried that I was dissatisfied with the relationship and sat down to evaluate myself) and then I realized that I was just being healthy!
I was obsessed with finding my soulmate and now that I have found him, I am obsessed with perfection. I was. No more. Now I just channelize (unconsciously till now) my energy back into other things which makes me happy. Like books and taking care of myself. It is in a way, the demise of an entire thought process for me. Because I believed that I was born to love a Person. One cause. An all consuming passion for one thing or person. But I guess I was wrong before and I am happy I was so. Because when I look back on how I used to perceive love – I realize it was unhealthy. Just an obsession with being obsessed. Thank god I have found normalcy (though before signing off I would like to say that somewhere in the darkest, deepest recess of my mind – I still hope that I find that one passion – one single thing that can contain me, reign me in, control me and obsess me)!! J
Maybe I will.
Thanks karim :)
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