Unconditional

Love is the emotion that scholars, poets, artists have given their two cents across time and continents. They say there is nothing more powerful, nothing more healing, or more beautiful than love.

It’s a beautiful sentiment; to look at this force with such rose colored glasses. They talk about the beauty of it so much that one has no choice but to idealize it, to glamorize any and all aspects of it.

No one said anything about the destructive side of it, of the ugliness, of the pain that sears the soul when encountered with it. It’s a sweet ache, yes, but it devolves a person, twists them.

Love is more about ruin, than brilliant horizons. Love is the graveyard you pass by on your way to school. Love is what you see far away, standing on the balcony and your heart twinges.

The scholars talk about Love being pure and perfect only when it is unconditional. You cannot truly love a person unless it is irrevocable. They think permanence adds to the beauty of the idealization that they make of Love. They shouldn’t. Not when permanence is what is going to be the most painful part of unconditional love.

When you stand across the room and you see your love, your heart thuds. There is meaning to that beat, there is joy in the way they smile at you, their arms reaching for you because you belong there. The intimacy when your gazes meet, enjoying an inside joke is all yours. Every single action they make is yours. Just like all of you is theirs. Your smiles, your happiness, the flare of your passion, it is all theirs — a toy placed delicately in their palm because you trust this person.

But when you see this love, across the room again, breaking your heart; the thud you feel is your heart crashing down from its pedestal. You never forget that crash, because you can never quite sweep away the splinters of your heart. You miss pieces of the glass container that once was a beacon, blazing warmth in their presence. You step on these pieces every other day and they slice through your feet with painful reminders that love was never the portrait that was supposed to hang permanently in the halls of your person.

Love was a momentary lapse in judgment, because if you could love a person who so easily could shatter your temple, were you ever truly responsible enough to step out?

Love should be wrought with conditions. Unconditional is what comes when the person you love comes with no conditions. But humans aren’t as simple as that, are they?

Humans come with terms signed within their souls. They could lie, cheat, betray, stab in a way as to take someone’s breath away.

How apt is it, to love someone through breaking your heart, cheating you of intimacy, betraying your trust? Are we really equipped to love unconditionally, when there is no such thing in the premises of human love?

Perhaps, yes, because when your love, drunken — apologetic, remorseful, sways on your doorstep with their eyes bloodshot — you can’t help but watch their devastation with sad eyes. You are sad, yes, but your loss has wrecked your love.

So when they ask you, “Do you still love me?” And you answer, “Yes,” You remove those conditions — of your own self, of your own esteem — and put them away in a jar.

When they step closer, “Promise to love me forever,” And you say, “Yes,” You remove the conditions — of yourself respect and theirs — and trample them with decisive stomps.

And when they kiss you after breaking you apart, you would know that love is just an illusion after all. Love has no conditions, because you will allow this person to put you back and break you apart every time.

So, the next time you stand on the balcony with your gaze on the horizon, promise love to yourself, because you deserve unconditional love as well. Fight for yourself, the way you would for them.