Love is possibly the strongest emotion in our lives. Look at the most famous songs of our time and of the past. It wasn’t the hip-hop and catchy lyrics that became treasures in peoples’ music playlist. It was the ballads, the heart wrenching songs, the breakups, the serenading songs that became an everlasting memory. Although we may have overplay those songs and shut it out of our minds, come a few years later when the song pops up on your radio or your random music playlist, the emotions come pouring through again and you feel you are reliving the memory.

I can’t say I have had plenty of relationships. I can’t say that I have dated much too. I guess they mainly come in the form of crushes, that sudden burst of excitement and fascination about the girl that I have just met or something she did triggered it in me. Do you really need to be in a relationship to know what love is though? Can someone on the bench know what it’s like to be on the field? I guess my thoughts about this are born out of deaths, personal experiences, observations and my spiritual faith.

They say love comes when you least expect it. Everyday we meet people in our lives and have conversations with them. That guy or girl could very well be the one you will spend the rest of your life with. We don’t know and I think that’s something truly beautiful. I guess it usually starts with a first impression. He or she feels different compared to the others. It could be the conversation you had, their voice, their eyes, their smile or the way they approach you. You feel this might go somewhere and you chat longer. The chasing begins and if you are fortunate, it ends with you two being together.

Every relationship is a risk. If there isn’t, then it wouldn’t be called love. The very act of love is not knowing where it’s going to go but you are willing to wait and find out because the person is truly important to you. Like anything, it comes with its stress and strain. The initial burst of excitement has now died down and what people are entering after that is the comfort zone. The two are comfortable with each other and sometimes there’s trouble with that. Your initial phase was based on the excitement and the unknown. The mystery of the person intrigues you. After all is said and done, what happens next?

Love is not something that can be quite explained in words. It’s felt and experienced. You will know it when you feel it. Love can be tangible with patience, selflessness, sacrifice, time, laughter, sadness, attraction and so much more. Love encompasses all of that. I know when I love someone, I feel something at the bottom of my heart. Physically, I feel something there to be honest but that’s just me.

How do you know when you stop loving someone? What happens when you feel like you are in limbo? You want to be with a person but you are still not sure if you love the person any more. No one can answer that question for you except yourself. Maybe ask yourself, why do you feel this way? What went wrong? Do you not have that light headedness any more each time you see him or her? Love is a two way street at times. If you really love someone, you yourself must put effort into it as well and make time for things. Are you with your her simply because you dread finding another one? Are you with him because things seem comfortable enough and it feels neither right or wrong? I guess you should ask yourself the question, is there anyone out there that can make you feel happier than he or she does?

I think in our day and age, we are mesmerized by the romantics of it all portrayed in movies and books. Life does not always turn out that way. I know my parents didn’t meet in the most perfect of circumstances but I’m pretty sure they love each other till today. Sometimes fiction is beautiful but it does not mean we impart it on our own reality. Sometimes, we have to remember that it’s our life and not others. Every story plays out differently and isn’t that why we meet each other to talk about it?

Don’t give up that easily on someone for giving up in itself is the easiest path. If you have asked yourself all the right questions and you feel he or she is inadequate for you, maybe something needs to be done. I said this at my sister’s wedding and I will write it here again. When there’s trouble or difficulty in your relationship, think back of the first date. Think back of that first day. Think back of what drawn you to that person initially because I’m sure you will remember them. That was the defining moment. Cherish that moment and keep it in your hearts forever. In the end, love prevails.

So, a friend that I haven’t spoken to messaged me on Facebook last week, this was in the midst of exams and so I didn’t reply him. I have known this guy for more than 5 years now. He was one of the good guys, always funny with his sarcasms and seemed carefree all the time. When I met him initially, he was fairly quiet. He was always stuck in his own work and the impression that you get off him was neither here nor there which really means he didn’t left an initial impression.

When I was in high school, I knew quite a lot of people.During then, I was always living in the moment. I couldn’t care what the next day bring or where I was going to go in the future. I was also always really sleepy in class. I would go to bed at 1 am and wake up at 6 am. I honestly can’t remember what I was doing, staying up so late. This was the pre-smartphone era and I wasn’t on my laptop all the time. I don’t read novels during the semester. I think I may have been reading Archies comics actually. Wow, I have gone so off tangent. As I was saying, I knew quite a lot of people. It was because we see each other in school all the time. You can’t really hide from anyone. He and I couldn’t hide from each other and so we got to know each other. Although high school has finished, this guy that didn’t leave an initial impression went on to become one of the guys I will always remember.

This guy spammed me on Facebook and asked me when I was coming back and wants to catch up. I told him I didn’t have plans to stay back in Malaysia for long this time. So, I asked him casually how are things. He then told me his dad has fourth stage cancer. I honestly thought he was messing with me for one second as he was always joking about things. Unfortunately, he wasn’t messing with me this time. His dad’s cancer has spread from the colon to his lungs. Initially, everything was okay after the large intestine was operated on but it came back and now it has got on to a very serious stage. He told me he was at crossroads and didn’t know what to do. He said he wanted to quit his studies and just work full time to support his family. I told him to keep studying because that’s what his dad would want him to do. He probably has kept this inside him for a long time now and only now was telling someone about it.

Flash forward a week later, I sat at a cafe with my own father. I missed this, I said to myself. My dad has spoken a lot of things to me since young and I figured I probably didn’t remember all of them. At this stage of my life, I realized I remembered almost every single thing he and my mum said. I may have switched off during those times but his words were inspired by events in his life and as I am now living mine, they have become part of my moral compass. Thinking back of my friend, if what’s he experiencing happened to my own father, I probably would have lost my sense of direction and like him, be at crossroads.

Flash forward a few hours later, I was folding cards as part of the table’s decorations for my sister’s wedding with my family. Mind you, folding cards is a mundane thing. It’s one of the most mundane things you can do. It was also during this time I seen my mum laughed uncontrollably for a long time. It was also during this time my dad said to me, “Fold the cards slowly, savour every moment. It can be mundane but if you find meaning in whatever you do, even the most mundane things can mean something.” I didn’t even realize I let time slip by and just folded the cards without thinking much of people in front of me. I started to fold them slower and remembered that my sister’s wedding is once in a lifetime. I don’t even know if I will get married. I started to remember things go by sometimes in a flash and we forget to spend time with people in front of us even when we are beside them.

Things happen outside of our control all the time. One day, we can be perfectly healthy. The next, we might lose whatever we deem important to us. It’s amazing how we forget that we are still breathing sometimes. For some people like my friend’s father, he’s barely breathing but staying strong to support his family. For my friend, he’s barely breathing but he was the one that took time to message me and was still joking with me, making his usual sarcastic remarks. For some of us like you and I who are breathing just fine, we forgotten that we are.

I pray my friend’s family will be alright and that his dad will be healed. As for you and I, we have our struggles in our lives. No one gets by in life without living them. I probably have lots of worries in life but if I’m always worrying about things that have yet to happen, what am I doing with things that are happening. Sometimes we think we may know about everything in life because we done it for a long time but doing something all our lives doesn’t mean that we are doing it right. The first we did in this world was to breathe from the world. Is it too late to learn again how to breathe? What do you think?

I remembered when I was in high school, I had this conversation with a friend by the balcony. I asked, “Do you wish you can be a child forever?” He replied, “What? No. Why would I want that? I want to be a teenager forever.” I then said, “Well, I want to be one forever.”

I guess I was fortunate enough to have a memorable childhood. For that, I’m extremely thankful every single day. I may not have had a particular outstanding teenage period but that didn’t matter to me now because when I look back at it, if I could choose again, I will choose childhood over teenage period in terms of which one I want it to be fondest. I still remember I said this prayer to God when I was 9, I asked him to stop time and that I can be a child forever. Looking back at it, it was probably a silly thing to do but I probably realised at a young age, that with adulthood comes huge responsibilities. I believed heaven existed back then and I still do but I wanted heaven to be where we were at. So when I was 9, I wanted everything to last forever. From my grandparents to my relatives to my friends to my family, I wanted to keep that memory in a bottle and able to live in it everyday.

Of course, nothing last forever and why would they. If there was a concept as permanence on earth, then life would be pretty dull and overpopulated might I add. Anyway, back on topic and to my childhood, you can ask me, “What was so exciting about your childhood?” and I would tell you that I don’t really remember. If I do, it’s probably the times I played chase with my friends at the park. If I do, it’s probably the times where I thought everyone was kind and sincere. If I do, it was because I watched cartoons and be excited about eating lunch with my grandparents. I can’t remember much but for the ones I do, it was simple and happy.

You might have been surprised at why I chose childhood over teenage hood. This was because it thought me things I never thought was important. Looking at things with a childlike mindset nowadays seems like a mammoth task because we have all grown older and are more exposed to events all around the world with the boom of social media and electronic news. I find that ironic because it almost seems like we were children yesterday. It almost seems like we look at things with a heart of a child not too long ago. We have forgotten how to do because we chose to. Have you ever got that feeling of warmth when you hold a child in your hands or when you look into their eyes? Why do we have that? Maybe it reminds us of life. The beauty of life does not lie in complication and long winding roads but rather it lies in simplicity. It lies in remembering the purity of a child.

Time will never reverse back to the time when you were a child but what you do everyday can be different. Maybe when you and I walk by a homeless person, we can just talk to him or her. Maybe when news regarding abortions and violence break out, we can think of how to help them. Maybe when we are struggling in our life, we can go out and take a seat on one of the swings at the parks, remembering our blessings and be thankful for it.

I look back at what I have written and realized you know what, I don’t need to ask to be a child forever because deep down inside of us lies one. it’s about remembering the innocence of a child and carry it with you everyday. Don’t leave it buried inside of you. Let it resurface each time you talk to another person. Then, that person will also have the same feeling or warmth and love.