"In Love" ... aspirations from reading

yennie said ...

"To love means never to be afraid of the windstorms of life; should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the beauty of the carvings."
by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, b.1926 Swiss-born American Psychiatrist and writer

I really like this quote... I can totally relate to what she's saying and I think it is very important for me to be reminded of this right now...

Here's an excerpt which I really like from The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards ...

... Caroline herself could feel a dull scratching deep in her throat as she called the next patient, an elderly gentleman whose cold would worsen in the next weeks, turning into the pneumonia that would finally kill him. Rupert Dean. He was sitting in the leather armchair, fighting a nosebleed, and he stood up slowly, stuffing his cloth handkerchief, with its vivid spots of blood, into his pocket. When he reached the desk he handed Caroline a photograph in a dark blue cardboard frame. It was a portrait, black and white, faintly tinted. The woman looking out wore a pale peach sweater. Her hair was gently waved, her eyes a deep shade of blue. Rupert Dean's wife, Emelda, dead now for twenty years. "She was the love of my life," he announced to Caroline, his voice so loud that people looked up. ...

In the March 2007 issue of Self magazine, Sheryl Crow said "I think you're at your best when truly your first love is for yourself and all other love stems from that. I've been really good at loving other people, but you get a little shortchanged when that comes above yourself."

I learnt from my previous relationships, I've been really loved but the way the relationship goes makes me unable to love myself.. The whole time, I thought something must be wrong with me. I kept trying to find the reason I become the kind of person who would take as much as possible without giving in the relationship..
Is it stupid to actually want to be able give as much as take?
Some people tell me that it's better to be loved more than loving someone more..
I don't quite agree with that. I've been there. Strangely, when people tells me how lucky I am to have someone who love me THAT much, I was envying other girls who willingly compromise for their partners. I guess in the end, it's a personal preference. Glad at least I know now, that's not how I wanted it.

Sheryl Crow also said in the same issue of Self... "Giving people the opportunity to really be there for you is a blessing for them as well as for yourself."

Outside of love relationship, I have always understand the blessing of being given the opportunity to really be there for someone else... But I need to learn to better understand that when I give others opportunity to be there for me... It's actually a blessing to them in some ways.... and that some people really WANT to be there for me... :P

Here's another excerpt from another article in the same issue of Self, to conclude my post today...

"Together, Forever" by Martha McPhee
"... In Morocco, on one of our honeymoons, I became drawn to the word inshallah, meaning "if God wills it." I love the simplicity and beauty of this idea. In English, there is no one word that so completely surrenders to fate. I remember this: Mark and I are trying to buy a rug from a merchant - actually, I am trying to buy the rug. Mark is watching me. We are in a small room deep inside the medina in the city of Fez. I barter, and the merchant, a wizened old man, says, "Madame, you are trying to buy a camel for the price of a rooster." I want the rug. I want the man to sell it to me for the rooster price. He is laughing at the fact that I am trying to buy a rug we can't afford, at my desire to pursue that which I should not be pursing. He pulls out his wallet and hands the man the camel price. I think, We need that cash. But the rug is not really what he is buying; he's indulging my dream. I thought then, and I think now: I love this man. I never want to divorce this man. Inshallah."

I'm blissfully happy...
Now I know that I'm capable of being in love with a person, not just being with someone to continue living a 'good life'...
Now when someone said to me 'loving someone means acceptance', I understand...
(Not because the person I love needs to be 'accept-ed' anyway... :P In fact, I love everything about him [so far :P]...)
I'm in love... hope it will lasts... *finger crossed* ^.^

Ciao!

P.S. Happy Birthday my MOST WONDERFUL li'l sis... (... MOST -> I only have one li'l sis :P ...) Love you sis! Hope you'll soon find all the happiness in the world!! Everything else might be over-rated... But you can be sure that happiness is not! :)