I remember a time not long ago when I was “totally in love” with this young lady to the point that it was agonizing. I was consumed with it and reflected on it 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 mesmerizing.
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 silly 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 fanciful, 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 it shows just a few of the myriad emotions that come with love. The multitude of different manifestations of love in the film range from betrayal, closet love, Colin’s vivid 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 ‘affair’; love is elemental, and painfully, when you lose your life partner; love is tacit, that ‘closed’ love of falling in love; and the 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 schoolgirl mermaid. And he tries everything to force his way into her heart.
And so it is for us when we find ourselves in the tormenting reality of a ‘one person hub world’. It seems that each of us goes through falling in love at least once. We are chopped and sometimes cruelly, would we have been better prepared to take care of our thoughts and our hearts? There is no real doubt.
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 other meanings, but at least it’s based on this. We must be careful with our mind. We can be disappointed so easily; 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
