Great loves do not simply fall from the sky

He told her: he fell from the sky and lived. She took a deep breath and believed him…. The universe was a place of wonders, and only habituation, the anaesthesia of the everyday, dulled our sight. She had read, a couple of days back, that as part of their natural processes of combustion, the stars in the skies crushed carbon into diamonds. The idea of the stars raining diamonds in the void: that sounded like a miracle, too. If that could happen, so could this. Babies fell out of zillionth-floor windows and bounced…. She focused her thoughts. “Sometimes,” she decided to say, “wonderful things happen to me, too.”

- Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

Great loves are rare. And as such, they do not simply fall from the sky, although they may feel like it. Great loves are everything people say they are. Once you find it, every cheesy song makes sense. The world is bright and cheery. You smile like an idiot. Your faith in humanity is restored. You feel awesome and beautiful and sexy. You are in love! It's as simple and as complicated as that. And then reality intrudes, as it inevitably does. All of a sudden, things are falling apart -- or falling in their rightful places, depending on your perspective. Ordinary loves fizzle. Great loves come through.

You and your love, this is how you do it.

Know yourself. This is more than just determining that you prefer pink over purple, or that you can't stand buttered popcorn. This is what you learn from all those breakups in the past, when you didn't think you could see beyond the tears and the heartache that came from being unceremoniously dumped. This is what you learn from being alone. This is what you learn when you befriend yourself. Knowing yourself is knowing that you deserve better, that you deserve the best, that good enough is never good enough. Knowing yourself is empowerment. This is the beginning of a great love.

Know him (or her). In the beginning, your Other was always perfect, in every sense of the word. He (or she) could do no wrong. Even the way he chewed his food looked sexy. Everyday life dulls what seemed magnificent at first blush, but to know your partner is to know that he is sexy, he is perfect, he is your One, no matter what. And no, it's not that you still have blinders on. It's knowing that he is human with all the fallibilities that make humans human. It's knowing that his past and your past led you to each other. Keep calm. Now starts now. Now is what matters.

Talk it out. Fall in love. Engage in free fall. Learn the difference between chatter and conversation. Create your very own language games. Say what's on your mind. Lay it all out on the table. Open your heart, and in doing so, open your mind. You are each other's mirror images. You see the best version of you reflected in his eyes. And he sees the same from you. You create an identity that is bigger than yourself. You are your selves' best versions. Hallelujah. The radio plays your song. The universe gets it. The world makes sense again. Until it doesn't.

Fight it out. This is inevitable. You are, after all, mirror images, and reflections don't always show just perfection. Whereas before you see your best side reflected in his eyes, now you see your worst. And he sees the same about himself. Choose your weapon. Defend yourself. Fight this one out. But be kind, always. This is your love you're fighting with, don't forget. It's in combat like this that you come to grips with yourself. You know yourself better, and if, despite all the chinks in your armor your Other remains right there holding his hand out, for crying out loud, reach out to him. Liking is for cowards. Go for what hurts.

Work it out. You wake up the next day and face him. That's tough. But tougher still is facing yourself. Go on nonetheless. You can do it. This is the stuff great loves are made of. Things don't just fall from the sky. Great loves don't just happen. They need work, real work, hard work, every damn day. It may sound like it takes the romance out of the grandest romance ever. I admit that it does. But there is something more romantic than the most grandiose declarations of love. It's staying, but not for the sake of staying. It's facing your ugliest and grossest self and saying it's okay, it's still you. It's loving your Other and being loved in return in a way that you both feel free.

Now go on. Find your great love. Check the skies, just in case.

#life