Is Love enough?

He would worry about me. He had a line of worry painted across his forehead, quite visible if anyone paid even the littlest attention to him. I think the insane words which came out of the mouth of the fanatic in love had unsettled him. Every time we used to have a conversation, either he or I, one of us had always felt uncertain of how to broach this part of the discussion. I was in love too much. We did know that any drivel or any balderdash chitchat would grow awkward if we tried to tiptoe past this topic.

"He knows me, he senses me. He feels me, you know. Not my skin, something that is inside me, which I can't touch. He touches that. Maybe that's what they call soul", I was flailing in delirium probably.

Pup-eyed, he kept staring at me. I felt the urge inside to convince him that I was not in any haze. I was not intoxicated by the longest shot, that I hadn't had a sip of alcohol in the last three years. But the overwhelm of my delirium might have confused him. With the way I was behaving, anyone would have responded the same way I think. The words were pouring out of me over which I felt no control. It felt like I was left with nothing for myself anymore. The more conscious I grew of this fact, the more spontaneous the blurt got. Everything, every secret I would spill this way my life would be up for public exposure. I was readily aware of this as well. The paranoia of this in past would have choked me in steps a long way back but that day nothing seemed deterring. Nothing mattered. It just took over me with clear convictions. I was fully conscious.

I almost pitied him for his loss. The loss he was incurring because he was not able to comprehend how I felt. How he was missing out on experiencing feelings like that. Those emotions, that warmth. 

I tried to convince him of this. I tried to explain that this was not the first time I had been in love. This was the first time I had felt a love of this kind. This was the first time I had loved with all my might. Openly. Unhesitant, unrestricted, unbarred. It was the kind that simply fit. Which complimented my dawn, my dusk, my void, my fullness. Like a protective shield, he cared for me from afar shearing through the dark, windy twists of life.  

I felt the pity in his eyes simmer down. Or maybe the flurry of self-absorbed gesticulations had opened the way for commiseration of sorts. Then once he came out of the haze, he could pierce me with his biting words.

It happened sooner than I had anticipated.

"But is that enough?", he broke the trance.

"Oh,! It's certainly not if you have to live on. But if today is it, it certainly is." it seemed like I had an answer for everything that day. I was bewildered by my own confidence that day. The realism of things was itching to get into my head (Thank God) most possibly to keep my head straight. "Of course, it's not. But I am trying to keep this today of mine in a bottle for all the time I have to come across upon. My very own message in the bottle. That is how I must preserve it. A person like me who hasn’t loved freely,  who hasn't been loved freely, has suddenly felt a burst of love in herself, how does she stay grounded? Let me fly. Hold me till I fly, so I don't fly away. It is going to be longer than today."

The sombre was sliding down upon our conversation the way the shadow due to sun kept inching into me. 

"The thing is you don't love equanimously. Not even equally. But there will come a time when you will love unconditionally. You don't get to pick that, it just happens. That's when you get to live. You love simply because there is nothing else you want to do. Or can do. You give because it was theirs to take. You take love because it is yours to get. It is a transaction without any bargaining or negotiation. You are confused about your helplessness but only a blush saves you. You tire yourself out of loving them, yet you will to exhaust yourself to scrape love from the remotest of corners within you to give it to them. Willy-nilly, you ask to be loved, and you are. The vice-versa is equally applicable. It’s as simple. Effortless. That too the way you have always dreamed of because it is tailor-made for you, no improvisations required.” I thought it had become a preachy monologue but I had his full attention. 

Without realising, I broke my own enchantment. “So what do you do when you have that?”. He jolted out after hearing the solemnity in my voice. The reality of things had pricked me no doubt. But, with a beatific smile, I rambled on earnestly “Maybe try to save it, protect it. But miss a fortune like that? Never. You let it slither through your skin, graze your neck, kiss your face and hope for it to perpetuate for the longest time. It is a feeling so pious you falter to your knees happily in the rapture like an enamoured Mastani in a courtroom full of patrons. You have fallen and yet you are laughing. You have nothing but joy in you.

The worry across his face was lost. He seemed satiated. He started to shift in his seat to make himself more comfortable I thought. The tension of the conversations seemed to have raised the temperature of the room. Only, he was making the circumstances conducive for a mild riposte. “But, is love enough?”, he yammered. Peevishly yet softly to match my monotone. “Of course, it’s not”, I retorted. 

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