loving thoughts

While clothes are left lying on my bed, waiting to be packed for a five-day training, I’m in front of the screen, writing. The call for my fingers to glide across the keyboard is just too irresistible to ignore. So please indulge me as I metaphorically steal a few bites of my dessert before I eat my vegetables.

As I push my fingers on the square keys, it’s now officially Valentines Day. Last year I greeted the occasion in the same way, by blogging at midnight. And why not make this Valentine blogging an annual tradition? I should consider making a pact with myself that I will write every time February 14 swings by. This writing I will do regardless of the state of my heart. Let’s see how long I could keep the “same time, next year” exercise. Will my views on love and relationships evolve throughout the years? Will I quit being dreamy and start being cynical? And will I . . . ?

My views on love this year is not much different from last year’s. I still think that love is not the fireworks that illuminate the sky every new year’s eve; it is the constant, steady light from a lamp that brightens a room every night. It's not being blown away by the music of a symphony orchestra; it's being warmed by the strains of a familiar tune from the radio.

And love, more than being about passion, is rather about grace. For isn’t this the same way we are loved by God—that we are loved, not because we deserved it (we didn’t and we don’t) but because He simply chose to? That we didn’t have to pay Him with good works for us to be declared worthy of love? For if that were the case, wouldn’t that be another form of barter system, “my good works in exchange for Your love”? Will it ever be right for love to be cheapened to mean an obligatory gesture by the other party because of the services to whom it was rendered? No. A thousand times no.

With this train of thought, I could go on and on and not be able to pack a single shirt in my bag before this decade ends. So let me stop. And think about love some other day.

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In my book, this beats Jerry McGuire's "You complete me" line:

(Harry, realizing that he can’t let Sally slip away, follows her to the New Year’s Eve party. There he matter-of-factly states that he loves her. She dismisses him, saying, “You just can’t show up here, tell me you love me…and expect that to make everything all right.” She tells him that it doesn’t work “this way.”)

"How about this way? I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a crinkle up on your nose when you look at me like I'm nuts. I love that after spending the day with you I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you're the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely and it's not because it's New Year's Eve.
I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."