An Odyssey to Wisdom

This is a long (but hopefully not a boring) read on the key learnings in the journey of love. The roles assigned to the 2 genders are completely arbitrary and has no bearing on the analysis.

You start appreciating the word “serendipity” – It all starts you first finding her when and where you had least expected to. You later wonder in sheer amazement about the myriad probabilistic events that had to align for the both of you to be at that place at that point of time.

The movies were right. It is indeed magical - The violins, the angels flying in the air, time beating slower when she turns and smiles at you, intolerable waits, new-found fondness for music, unconditional exuberance when together, yada yada – all of this (and much more)  that you always dismissed as whimsical movie histrionics now pleasantly surprise you.  One proposes, other accepts, and you are a couple! The time-frame of courtship may vary hugely though. The initial days are full of unbridled excitement, moments that take your breath away, feelings that you never knew existed, emotions that create memories of a lifetime.  You will do things for each other and make each other feel beautiful, important and loved. Love becomes your oxygen.

You will live and feel “serenity” – You’ll have feelings of inner calm, peace and tranquility that you had never felt before. “Break-up” is a word you’ll think doesn’t exist in your lexicon. “Fights” is a word you’ll laugh-off as a trivial infelicity and wonder why other couples indulge in it. Long-distance will be a myth you would dispel with disdain. For a brief but glorious period of time you’ll think that you are the most happy, stable, secure and unique couple there ever was.

The beginning of the end -  "'Tis not love's going that hurts my days, But that it went in little ways."-  You’ll have your first fight on the most trivial of issues. Its brevity will make you ignore it as a one-off thing. “We are too stable a couple to fight again, isn’t it?” And then you’ll have an argument again. And again. And then again. The slope of the graph of happy moments will slowly start decreasing and the graph of moments when you are arguing or fighting – that was until now chilling peacefully as a horizontal straight line – will suddenly wake up to attain a steadily increasing positive slope. Then, you realize it’s one of your many anniversaries. You get back to your best, celebrate with unbridled love, forget all the fights and promise to be like you were when you first met each other again.

The inflection point begins from a simple question – It all starts with an simple, practical yet devastating question – “What if we can’t be together forever?”. Once this question is seeded in her mind, the level of scrutiny on every action made and every word said escalates. Tolerance levels tank and every moment is a feedback to answer the bigger question – “Are we right for each other?” Practicality slowly kicks in, the magical moments don’t seem so magical anymore and it is here that stability stems from compatibility and mutual understanding to avoid the inflection point. Alas this is a privilege of only a fortunate few. For the majority, every discussion becomes a debate, every debate a fight. Useless words are said out of anger that they don’t mean but later hugely regret having said. “You always do this” and “You have changed” get spoken more often than “I love you”. Couples in a long distance relationship realize why “Long distance doesn’t work” is not a myth after all. Like a parasite, the 2nd question latches onto the first, draining nourishment from the bonds of the couple, and feeding off every fight and argument they have till it begets the unfortunate answer “No.”

The End is nothing you had ever imagined– You always knew it was coming but had no clue about the timing. Feelings for each other are never equally balanced and one of them will always love the other too much to wish for it to end. When it does, “It’s over” is the phrase that meets the most deafening silence followed by the most savage storm you have felt in your lifetime. Like someone has put their hand down your throat, tore out the heart from within, crushed and mutilated it in front of your very eyes, and then forced the squashed remains that is dripping in your blood down your esophagus. Every place, every song, every movie reminisces you of the memories you had once shared evoking unstoppable tears, slowly rotting, numbing and deadening you from within. "Is this the same person who once loved you so deeply? Where did we go wrong? It must be my fault. But entirely?” you think to yourself over-analyzing every word and moment spent together. You find no answers and get engulfed deeper into the storm.  

The movies and Paulo Coelho are wrong – The ubiquitous idea that true love never fails that the movies have unwittingly cultivated in your mind get a huge reality check. True love is necessary but not sufficient and persistence with someone who no longer loves you merely yields botheration. Worse, it crystallizes in their mind the correctness of their decision. Even if you want something from the bottom of your heart with the purest of emotions, the universe has a life of its own and better things to do than to conspire to provide it to you. Imagine the work-load on it having to conspire to the wants of so many people around the world. A relationship is like the output of an AND gate. It’s on only when both inputs are on and there’s nothing the universe can do to help.

There is no closure – You hope that you can reason with her and that someday she will realize that this was all a mistake and will be full of regret. But the chances of that happening are as good as you sleeping on earth and waking up on moon. She will be happy in her life. She will never regret it. Closure is not an entitlement. You can’t earn it and most likely will never get it so don’t wait or hope for it. This practicality is the final nail in the coffin of your “magical” relationship.  

The beginning of a new beginning. Nothing lasts forever!  –  One day you force yourself to meet your friends and get surprised when you spurt out the feeblest of smiles at a silly joke. Then you laugh. Then a bit louder. There is a ray of hope. Inch by inch you crawl back. But normalcy is still far away. You start finding ways to keep yourself busy – jogging, gym, books, movies, TV series, documentaries, Quora, friends, writing, a latent passion, etc. You find something interesting and cling on to it for inspiration. The inches add up. You finally find a goal (new job, promotion, etc.) and doggedly put in efforts. You might fail in it but that’s not what the bigger purpose of the goal was either. Your time is much precious and the world has endless facets to learn, feel, and emote. The storm subsides gradually, the clouds melt away giving way for soft sunshine that kisses your face. You are done with the 500 days of Summer and know that there might be an Autumn somewhere waiting for serendipity.

Unconditional love is not a myth. You are just looking for it at the wrong place – You will realize that (almost always) the only people capable of loving you unconditionally will be your immediate family. There is no match to the undying love of your parents and if you love them back a tiny fraction of how much you loved your ex, the world will be such a better place! People are selfish. Everybody lies, people we love break our trust and leave us in the darkest of abyss wailing in gut-wrenching debilitating pain. So you have to find the people worth getting hurt for. Our parents deserve to be our first choice.

Now that you know all this, you ask yourself that if this is the cycle do you really wish for Autumn?

Yes. No. Maybe?

The end might have been painful, but for a time you had someone who truly loved you , created "magical" moments with you, gave you butterflies in your stomach, and made you happy. They are special people and the journey was worth it. As someone has wisely said - "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened". Wish them happiness, and find some for yourself too. And to answer the question - do you really have a choice whence swept off your feet by serendipity?  Who knows you just might evade the inflection point this time!  If not, you’ll be a wiser person!

P.S. 1 - At the risk of being repetitive, the analysis is not gender specific.

P.S. 2 - The author wishes for a world where most journeys aren't a complete cycle.