I remember a time not long ago when I was “head over heels” with this young woman to the point where she was dying. I would consume myself and reflect on her for long periods of time; Not many days went by that I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about her, both unconsciously and consciously, I’m sure. It was distracting and paralyzing in hindsight. I’m sure everyone around me could see, but I was blind, or at least I stuff be blind to it. The power of this ‘love’ was totally captivating and fascinating.
However, much later (two years exactly) I knew, or suddenly discovered, that I was not so much in love, but more totally infatuated — in love with the idea of being in love; the perception of what that would look like; and dumb to that end, as the dictionary meaning says: Obsession 1:make it dumb :deprived of good judgment; two: inspire with silly or extravagant love or admiration.[1]Such ‘love’ is clearly make-believe, not real, and therefore silly. but it is It seems real.
I was reminded of this after recently revisiting “Love Actually” the movie. It’s such a good movie that shows just a few of the countless emotions that go hand in hand with love. The multitude of different manifestations of love in the film range from betrayal, closet love, Colin’s lived out sexual fantasy, to ‘real life’ love stories in the formation of a relationship between the British Prime Minister (played by Hugh Grant) and his young assistant, Natalie, played by Martine McCutcheon, and also between Colin Firth’s character Jamie and Aurelia, played by Lucia Moniz.
according to the movie love actually, there is a mixture of many forms of love: love in politics (mentioned above); love as a second language, a wonderful comedy of errors that ends in marriage; love at work, that doesn’t work; love that lasts a lifetime and is never expected to end in a cheap ‘fling’; love is elemental, and painfully, when you lose your life partner; love is tacit, that ‘closed’ love of falling in love; and love that just ‘moves’ with words sung by Billy Mack (Bill Nighy).
The title quote: comes from the horribly awkward emotional turn of the stepson of Liam Neeson’s character (Sam); not so much from losing his mother, the predicted reaction, but from “being in love” with a twelve-year-old school mermaid. And he tries everything to force his way into his heart.
And so it is for us when we find ourselves in the tormenting reality of a ‘one person core world’. It seems that each of us goes through falling in love at least once. We are stung and sometimes cruelly, would we have been better prepared to take care of our thoughts and our hearts? There is no question of truth.
There is a Proverb that speaks powerfully to this wandering theme of emotion: “Above all, guard your heart, for life springs from it.” (4:23) It may have a plethora of meaning, but at least it builds on this. We must be careful with our mind. We can be so easily disappointed; then we are one step away from the enemy force that invades our hearts.
However, life also goes on in the midst of all this.
Copyright © 2008, SJ Wickham. All rights reserved throughout the world.
[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/infatuation