That kind of love

“It was the kind of love that, sooner or later, cornered you into a choice: either you tore free or you stayed and withstood its rigor even as it squeezed you into something smaller than yourself.” 

― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

Most days, we long for someone to love us deeply, unyieldingly, and without recourse. Sometimes, we are so selfish that we'll do anything, anything, to get someone to love us; even if sometimes we are a little hard to love. But, we accept the love we think we deserve.

Some days, there is a kind of love that terrifies me; the kind of love that is much bigger than we are ever capable of having; the kind of love that is too big for us to bear, that all it ever does is shrinking us into a million tiny molecules. The kind of love that, instead of nurtures—kills. 

Forward

I always consider myself a lucky person. And sometimes, when you're lucky, good things happen to you. And sometimes, when one good things happen, others will follow, so sometimes you will be so overwhelmed with so many good things that you either, a) forget that it's only temporary, or b) you get scared because you start to believe that too much of good things can kill you. No, really. Sugar, for example.

At the start of this year, that's what happened to me. A bit of both, actually. Things started to change course a little while ago, and I can't believe that I'm particularly glad that it did. Because too much sugar can kill, so a little bit of sour and bitter may be good for me, you know?

I like that it did. I like that now my life is pretty much in the normal, balanced pH (it's very good when it's in a product you use on certain parts of your skin), so I believe it must be good. I like that I feel like life is talking to me. Mostly, I like that life reminds me that just when I think I've seen it all, like I've had it all, life can still surprises me. 

Had I stayed where I had been, on my throne much more beautiful than the infamous Iron Throne, I probably won't have this wisdom. I probably won't be able to speak in this manner; the manner of someone who's finally been where people have been. I like the fact that I'm back to land on my own two feet, and having a life realistic enough for people to let me be. I'm glad that I would no longer be the cocky version of myself that some people (including me) would find extremely obnoxious. Because as much as I would like to be back there again someday, I... would prefer to work my way around it, rather than relying on luck. Because even though I believe in luck as a grand factor that can define our lives, it can only get you so far. When you're too overwhelmed in it, you'll drown. And before you lose your ability to swim and float, you gotta go back to the land and walk on it. Because that's how the history always teaches us. Explorers walk (or sail on ships, whatever); they don't swim and drown.

As it is

Mindy Kaling's commencement speech at Harvard Law School Class Day 2014 is basically what I really want to hear at my own graduation--which happened some time ago--and went nothing quiet like it. This speech basically reminds us how really important it is to be educated; to be smart; to be acknowledged by the world for the qualities that we basically had to work on, rather than blessed with. I found this speech to be quiet moving, and it's always refreshing to hear someone who could tell it as it is, had the talent of insulting people without being offensive, and all that was done by a woman who is so confident of herself--and that's because she's so damn smart and sure about what she's capable of.