Today, I walked fast. I did not walk fast for my usualy reasons: being extremely late or trying to seem busy and therefore important. Actually I was late, but that aside, I was walking fast to get out of the icy cold rain and wind and away from the sky that was so gray it caused campus to be nearly nighttime dark at 11:30 a.m. I hate days like this because I have to try extra hard to stay in a good mood.
Of course, living in Washington causes about 70% or more of our days to be this way; gloomy, wet and gray. Even the beautiful greens and blues of Washington landscape turn into gray and black on days like that. It is as if somebody opens Washington up in photoshop and turns the colorful landscape into a black and white picture.
I could go on and on about how dreary these gray Washington days are, but that's not my point.
As I was speed-walking to class, I glanced around me at all the dreary details. (good college reporters always look around at details) I looked around me at all the other students sitting or walking with glazed eyes and frowned faces, knowing that they felt as down as I did on this gloomy morning. They probably also wished they were at home with hot cocoa, watching reruns of "King of the Hill." (or some similar notion)
I noticed a guy about my age hurrying towards me, going the opposite direction. He was probably late too. As I glanced at his face, he glanced at mine and to my surprise, met my gaze with a grin. It shocked me so much that I nearly didn't smile back. But in the nick of time, I returned a small smile and hurried on, flustered. But that boy's friendly grin was enough to raise my hunched shoulders and my dragging spirits. Even on sunny days, students don't look at each other, let alone smile at each other! They just walk with eyes glued to the ground, drowning the world out with their ipods, too busy with their insignificant lives to notice the people around them. And if we students do notice someone looking at us, we avoid their gaze, walking faster to avoid human contact. That is the purpose of college isn't it? To be anti-social and avoid those outgoing people who actually like to get to know people? (The nerve!)
Yet, on probably the grossest, grayest day of the year, this boy had the heart to reach out and touch my spirit with his. As I thought about it, I just wanted to run back and hug him. I wanted to tell him how bad I had been feeling and that his smile lifted me higher. But I had to hurry to class before I was late enough for the teacher to glare at me. I even said a small prayer thanking the Lord for the boy I knew He had sent to cheer me up. I even decided to start my "Thankful Journal" again, where I write five things that happened that day I am grateful for.So, see how much just one smile can do for someone? Never underestimate the power of a smile. I am now resolved to sometimes break past the solemn face I always wear and genuinely smile at people, strangers even. If some other college student could do it, so can I. I am tired of just being another part of the gray scenery. We live in Washington; you know we need some sunshine. If the sun won't provide it, maybe we should?
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
How to express Love?
I am figuring out just how difficult expressing love can be. I mean, how do you express love to someone? By saying, "I love you."? "Ich liebe Dich."? Those are just three words. "Those three words are said too much, but not enough."
What do words mean anyway? Words are just utterances made from your voice box and released from your lips. Just clear sounds. And those three words do little to capture this explosive feeling found in the heart when you love someone. Besides, words can be retracted. The mouth from whence kind and adoring words once came can at a later time expel the most utter and horrific words. "I love you" can just as easily turn into "I hate you". So what could telling someone three words prove? Nothing.
So, judge them by their fruits, you say? So to express love, I can do little things like making my boyfriend pumpkin bread? Doing the dishes without my being asked too? Bringing flowers to a sick friend? What do those things do to prove love? Food will be eaten, dishes will get dirty again, and flowers will wilt.
So just how can we validly express love? If you think about it, it truly is frustrating.
I feel this ebbing, pulsing warmth radiating from my heart, my very core. This warmth desires to be spread. It wants me to share it with the people I am feeling it for. But how? How can I explain to them something that I feel? Feelings aren't tangible; love isn't measurable. You can't see it, yet it is utterly beautiful. You can't touch it, yet it can literally lift you up or tear you down. It can touch you? But Newton's third law of motion proves that you can not touch something without also being touched by that thing. So how could love touch us and we can not touch it back?
I have one conclusion. Love is unexpressable and unexplainable. The only way to get someone to understand how much you love them is to get them to love you back. Love truly is a give and take. No one can truly understand the feelings you have for them unless they feel that way back. I can bake you goodies, buy you cards, write you a song, cry if you break my heart, miss you when you are gone, kiss and hug you, make love to you in my dreams, utter your name in sleep, take a bullet for you, but none of it will mean anything to you unless you feel the same. Only then will you understand why I would want to stay up until 3 in the morning talking about things that won't matter when I wake up. Or why I would want to spend 11 straight hours decorating a birthday cake for you. Why I would sacrifice everything I live for and believe in just to make you happy. What does all that mean to an unrequited lover?
So there is something scientific about love after all. Newton's third law proves that you cannot exert force on something else without it exerting the same amount of force back on you. When we cuddle, my cheek doesn't just rest on your shoulder, your shoulder supports my cheek. My hand doesn't just hold yours, your hand holds mine too. My lips don't just meet yours, but our lips meet each other. And I cannot just love you, but you must love me back with equal force. And you do. I thank the Lord above for that every time I see your excited eyes look at me; everytime I hear you tell me how beautiful I am as if it is a well-known, well-proven fact; everytime you hold me in that way that makes feel like I wouldn't be able to stand if your arms were not holding me up; everytime I nearly cry when you tell me, "I love you too."
Love is difficult to express because it must be simply understood. When I say "I love you," those three words turn into so much more than three words because you feel the same. You feel the meaning and the warmth radiating off those three words as they pass through my lips because you feel the same way I feel when you say "I love you." So love is not an expression, but a shared experience. One must experience it to understand it. And to understand how much someone loves you, you must feel the same amount of love towards them.
What do words mean anyway? Words are just utterances made from your voice box and released from your lips. Just clear sounds. And those three words do little to capture this explosive feeling found in the heart when you love someone. Besides, words can be retracted. The mouth from whence kind and adoring words once came can at a later time expel the most utter and horrific words. "I love you" can just as easily turn into "I hate you". So what could telling someone three words prove? Nothing.
So, judge them by their fruits, you say? So to express love, I can do little things like making my boyfriend pumpkin bread? Doing the dishes without my being asked too? Bringing flowers to a sick friend? What do those things do to prove love? Food will be eaten, dishes will get dirty again, and flowers will wilt.
So just how can we validly express love? If you think about it, it truly is frustrating.
I feel this ebbing, pulsing warmth radiating from my heart, my very core. This warmth desires to be spread. It wants me to share it with the people I am feeling it for. But how? How can I explain to them something that I feel? Feelings aren't tangible; love isn't measurable. You can't see it, yet it is utterly beautiful. You can't touch it, yet it can literally lift you up or tear you down. It can touch you? But Newton's third law of motion proves that you can not touch something without also being touched by that thing. So how could love touch us and we can not touch it back?
I have one conclusion. Love is unexpressable and unexplainable. The only way to get someone to understand how much you love them is to get them to love you back. Love truly is a give and take. No one can truly understand the feelings you have for them unless they feel that way back. I can bake you goodies, buy you cards, write you a song, cry if you break my heart, miss you when you are gone, kiss and hug you, make love to you in my dreams, utter your name in sleep, take a bullet for you, but none of it will mean anything to you unless you feel the same. Only then will you understand why I would want to stay up until 3 in the morning talking about things that won't matter when I wake up. Or why I would want to spend 11 straight hours decorating a birthday cake for you. Why I would sacrifice everything I live for and believe in just to make you happy. What does all that mean to an unrequited lover?
So there is something scientific about love after all. Newton's third law proves that you cannot exert force on something else without it exerting the same amount of force back on you. When we cuddle, my cheek doesn't just rest on your shoulder, your shoulder supports my cheek. My hand doesn't just hold yours, your hand holds mine too. My lips don't just meet yours, but our lips meet each other. And I cannot just love you, but you must love me back with equal force. And you do. I thank the Lord above for that every time I see your excited eyes look at me; everytime I hear you tell me how beautiful I am as if it is a well-known, well-proven fact; everytime you hold me in that way that makes feel like I wouldn't be able to stand if your arms were not holding me up; everytime I nearly cry when you tell me, "I love you too."
Love is difficult to express because it must be simply understood. When I say "I love you," those three words turn into so much more than three words because you feel the same. You feel the meaning and the warmth radiating off those three words as they pass through my lips because you feel the same way I feel when you say "I love you." So love is not an expression, but a shared experience. One must experience it to understand it. And to understand how much someone loves you, you must feel the same amount of love towards them.
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