How To Love Someone
I was sitting there on the sand facing the ocean. She was sitting in front of me, with her back against my chest. My arms around her, holding her close to me, I was touching her face. Her hair fluttered around in the wind that was caressing us lovingly—the wind of life passing by.
Clouds hovered above our heads, looking down and watching us with their invisible eyes, as if they wanted to capture the essence of that moment.
The crimson-orange sun was slipping into the ocean, bit by bit, moment by moment—as if deliberately—just to see us together one more time before embarking on its own journey, leaving behind just a yellow tint on the skyline.
I looked at the setting sun and it spoke to me, “Stay there my friend, as long as you are meant to be. Make this moment eternal. Freeze it in your heart like a beautiful painting, so that you can look at it when you need to—and you will need to someday!”
There was no noise. Just the sound. The sound of silence. The sound of the wind passing by. The sound of the waves coming, touching our feet—as if to kiss them—and going back, taking away with them the message of love into the ocean of eternity!
There were no words to say. No things to talk about. All was said and heard already. No questions remained. No answers were needed. All we needed was already there—Us!
We were two souls becoming one in that moment—the moment of a lifetime!
Just like in the heart of an atom lies an enormous power, which if allowed to explode can destroy everything around it, similarly, there exist moments in our lives, which if allowed to come to surface and open up, have the incredible power to demolish all the emotional blockages, that we take years to build, in order to keep our sorrows, hurts and suffering of our pasts locked up inside us.
We lock them up so that we can survive and go on with our “normal” lives. The lives that other people see us living. But only we know, that how other people perceive our lives to be, is not how our lives are. There is always an undercurrent of life that we live, along with a life that we live on the surface.
And then someday, something happens and that moment—which we always keep hidden inside us and avoid facing at all costs—comes to surface and explodes. Its utter intensity and colossal power takes on a life of its own.
We feel helpless in front of it. We give up because there is no other choice but to surrender ourselves before it. We let it do what it is supposed to do—to shatter to pieces all the bandages that we put on our hearts, wound by wound.
And then the storm bursts forth with an all-consuming force, and spills out of our eyes in the form of tears. They just come and come and come… We cry from the heart. Our souls shiver in the presence of such a moment and we—ourselves—become just like a tear. Wet from the inside out, drifting away from ourselves, going with the pull of the gravity of our emotions.
It doesn’t stop, unless everything is washed away. It doesn’t end, unless there is nothing left to cry about. It doesn’t rest, unless all that remains in our hearts is emptiness.
And emptiness is a blessing, because if your heart is already filled, you can not love anyone or anything, without creating a mess inside an already messy heart. Cleansing is important and that is what that moment does to us. It cleans out the past debris, leaving behind a heart as pure as gold.
People say that you can only love once in your life. They say that you can never forget your first love or your last love. I say that there is no first or second or last love. There is only love and we love the people we are supposed to love when it’s their time to show up in our lives.
You won’t be able to stop that feeling of love for someone when it is time for you to love him or her. Reasons don’t matter in the affairs of the hearts. Hearts come with a reasoning of their own.
And every love that you experience is different and yet the same. Each love leaves you with something immortal, eternal and changes you in an unchangeable way. And listen to me when I say this;
If you have loved someone, and that has not changed your life for good, you have never really loved.
That is the unchallengeable power of love.
People love and get hurt, and heartbroken many of them either fall into depression or turn toward avoidance by welcoming drugs and/or revengeful lust in their lives. They think that their lives are worth nothing, now that they can not be with the one they love.
What a wasteful approach toward love that is! What a sad, negative approach!
Yes it hurts and it hurts really bad when it happens, and yes it leaves its scars on your soul, but is that all that your loving someone gives you?
What about those golden moments when you felt complete with the person you loved? Don’t they mean anything to you now?
What about the ecstasy in which your spirit danced when you loved someone? Does that have no value for you, now that your beloved is not with you anymore?
Why not?
Love is just like life. It has its ups and downs. Sorrows and pleasures. Hurt and healing.
Why do we only focus on the hurts and forget about all the pleasures it lets us experience? Why we only remember the suffering and choose not to acknowledge its blessedness? Like I said, love is just like life. Love is life. Life is love.
So let’s treat it as life itself.
Strip away the hurt and let that moment dance in your heart which made you feel complete—even if for a second. Get rid of the suffering and let the glorious light of love shine in your spirit.
And as for the hurts and suffering—The Moment—which I talked about above, will take care of that. Your tears will wash it all away. Learn to cry like that. Learn to let that moment soothe your trembling heart. Learn to respect those healing tears—that holy water!
Yes that moment may not be a single moment. It may stretch itself to a day, a week, a month, a year or even a few years, but it always comes one day to take you in its healing and invigorating embrace.
And when your heart starts feeling light again—and it will—love that person even more. Keep him or her alive in your heart and be grateful, that he or she made it possible for you to feel love’s elation, its rapture, its intoxicating beatitude—the greatest emotion you as a human being can ever experience.
Let your sorrows be your sweetest songs, like Shelley so aptly and so beautifully said,
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
As I heard these lines, I opened my eyes and the sun had already gone down. The night was waking up. The winds were still dancing around. The waves were coming and going as they were supposed to. Life was dancing on the tunes of destiny, as always.
The only one who was not there—was Her. She was gone with the sun. I smiled at her, at the ocean, at the winds, at the clouds, at myself, at life, at love and walked back to my life again—with my eyes almost dry, and a silence in my heart, the type of silence that floats over the stillness of our souls after a storm has just passed.
Blessing her one last time, I whispered to her soul that she will always remain in my heart, but only for the greatest emotions she allowed me to experience with her. I told her that I’ll be eternally grateful to her that she came into my life for however little a time, for whatever reasons.
And in the heart of my heart, I knew, that it’s not over—yet…
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I am speechless; in awe of this piece and the feelings it brought forth in me. I have a hard time with the idea of blessing the pain and “smiling because it happened”. To have such bliss and lose it, to me, is so cruel and murderous to my heart and soul.
At the same time, I understand the intention and bittersweet truth of your words. Somehow we do go on ~ changed forever ~ and move forward to experience other miracles.
Thank you so much for this incredible expression of something so difficult to describe and talk about.
Rebecca,
I am speechless too after having written it. Yes you are right in saying, “Somehow we do go on ~ changed forever ~ and move forward to experience other miracles.”
Thank you for your beautiful thoughts.
I came accross this article at a time in my life when I am battleing with sadness, resentment, and greif for having lost that wonderful gift of love i shared for 31 years. It’s so difficult to accept that the love we both shared for so many years, changed only for him. Your words are so beautiful, they made me cry (good tears) Just so hard to let go of something so beautiful. Your words have given me hope that I will once again be blessed to have love again in my life.
Thank you for inspiring me.
This is beautiful, Abubakar,
I especially love this: “… there is no first or second or last love. There is only love and we love the people we are supposed to love whenever it’s their time to show up in our lives.” I agree. That is so perfectly stated.
I also agree that love changes us in one way or another. I think that’s why the people we love come into our lives–to teach us things or help us learn the lessons we need to learn, to grow and live some more.
Thanks for this! Lots of love stories going around right now–this is tops
Leah,
Thanks a lot for reading leaving behind your comment and your understanding and support. indeed, “the people we love come into our lives–to teach us things or help us learn the lessons we need to learn, to grow and live some more.”
This touched my soul, dear Abubakar. Your words were poetic and yet true; romantic but so realistic! The most beautiful piece I have read in recent times – about love.
Dearest Rashmie,
Words when come out of the soul have a way of touching other souls. I’m grateful that you allowed them to touch yours.
I read this with tears.
A beautiful piece, clearly from deep in your heart. I could see you on that shore, hear the wind, watch the sun go down.
But like the sun, love is only out of sight below our horizon for a while, only to return, when it’s time, to warm and uplift us once more.
Oh Linda,
You read it with tears because I wrote it with tears. So it’s my doing
I loved what you wrote, “But like the sun, love is only out of sight below our horizon for a while, only to return, when it’s time, to warm and uplift us once more.”
This is really heartfelt.
Thank you Lo for feeling it.
It is really painful to be apart from someone we love, to be forced to let them go, and to realize that the separation is only the decision that should be taken.
There is one logical matter we must believe in it…… (Relations Depend On Fate, on Predestination). !
Here are some words written by me…
there is a storm in my heart
cause why should we be separate
there is no beginning to again start
everything is over, that our fate
i wished to be mine
i wished to live with you
i lost my life shine
as i lost you too
you were the light my life
you were the everything
with you there is no grief
without you i am nothing
now everything is over
not belong to me anymore
it was later or sooner
that what will happen for sure
and the storm in heart asking still
why we should be separate?!
but i have nothing to tell
it is just our fate….!
How beautiful Mashail! Thank you for your lovely comment and yes i do think our destinies play a vital role in bringing as well as taking away love in and out of our lives.
Abubakar – This is without doubt the best piece of writing I’ve read in a long, long time on a blog. It has heart and a deep lesson and it truly spoke to my soul. Thank you my brother…You are truly gifted and a blessing to many.
Thank you so much dear Corinne for not only reading this post but feeling it and sharing it with others. I appreciate that.
Abubakar, your words bring to mind another great writer and thinker…
The heart has its reasons
that reason knows not of….
We know this in innumerable ways.
~ Blaise Pascal
Dear Debra,
I’m humbled by your comment. Thank you for taking the time to express your thoughts here in the beautiful words of Pascal.
This is such a soul stirring article and very well written. It has all the ingredients to inspire introspection in the reader. Your words are true and pure, depicting my inner feelings which I always had, but never thought of putting them into words. But now that I have finished reading, I feel all these thoughts were lying in the depths of my own heart and you just gave words to them.
You talk about gaining strength from ones vulnerabilities. It’s cruel in a way, when u dissect love but that’s the truth. Love has its own rules. Your lover can leave, but love remains there forever, changing you to a certain degree, for better or for worse, that’s the miracle of love!
Dearest Mahi,
Thank you for expressing your thoughts and making me feel that I succeeded in conveying the message that I intended to convey through this piece of writing.
Bhai, how beautiful. Through all the chaos all around me, this brought me a beautiful peace, emptiness even. Thank you
God bless
Thank you Uzma for your comment and I hope that you are doing great.
God bless you too my friend.
Abubakar,
This was pulled from some deep part of your soul and touched mine just as deeply. How beautiful, sad, bittersweet but true your words are. We love who we are meant to at the right time to learn and stretch our hearts during different phases of our lives. To be able to look back even in sorrow with a smile and gratitude for what we gained from loving this person is a sweet blessing.
Thank you so much for sharing this with us.
Thank you dear Angela, for your beautiful comment.
Dear Abubakar,
What more can I say?! This is the most moving and heartfelt blog post I have ever read.
You have said everything there is to say about love.
Your words are deeply heartfelt and like all the other readers above, it moved something deep within me.
I long to experience in my life what you have experienced. I just hope it’s in my destiny to do so:-)
Be well always, my friend.
Love and blessings.
Arvind
Dear Arvind,
Thank you for your lovely words and don’t worry love has a way of finding the heart who seeks it.
and then it comes and resides there all by itself.
This piece is best felt through my heart space rather than read/processed through my mind. I Feel it, and I thank you for that! I’ve lived it, and I’m glad you were able to capture the essence so well. Love is an experience..one I open my heart to daily. Thank you for having the courage to love deeply and to share openly. Very inspiring! Most beautiful. Just as love is:)
Dear Joy,
Thank you for this heartfelt comment and yes I totally agree with with you that love is an experience, in fact, it is one of the greatest experience that we as human beings can ever experience.
This is incredibly beautiful, Sunny! This is by far my favorite blog post that I have read in a long, long time. You wrote this straight from the heart, and I can feel it in mine. Thank you for sharing such beauty!
Dear Jay,
Glad to see you here my friend and more than glad that you could feel this post. Thank you.
Thank you. I’ve loved and lost and I haven’t been able to find closure. Your post touched a chord in my heart! Yes, it was beautiful while it lasted and it has changed me for the better. There is no bitterness in my heart, but even though so many years have passed I can’t help thinking about it and wondering why? Thank you for sharing this. I know it will help me enormously.
I really hope this post helps you Anar. I know what you are going through and trust me you’ll find closure all by itself, when it’s time. But memories do always remain. Let’s nourish those memories and accept them because they somehow made us who we are today. Get the best out of them and move on my friend. May your path be easier now!
Abubakar,
This blog post is the most beautiful and moving piece I’ve read. Felt so moved by the words you said there. Its like resonating with my heart strings. You have a fantastic way of putting words together. Having my significant other has totally changed the way I live my life. I’m eternally grateful for finding someone like her to spend our journey of life together.
Happy for you Bryan. It’s great to have some you love in your life. Thanks a lot for your kind words about the post and of course welcome to the blog.
Abubakar,
I stumbled upon your blog by chance and after reading this magnificent piece of writing, added it to my bookmarks bar under the category of ‘beautiful’…I will return to read your eloquent and heartfelt words.
Thank you for speaking from your heart.
Lily, thanks to you for giving these words your precious attention and for leaving your much appreciated feedback.
This was such a beautiful post. I, like so many people who have replied to your post, have also loved and lost. I strive every day to remember how amazing the love I felt was and yet to have the strength to move on, accept that my partner left me, and have the courage to live my life again. It’s terrifying to feel that I may have lost the one true love of my life. Sometimes the loneliness is too much to bear. On some level I do understand why things ended and yet it feels near impossible to accept that it’s over forever. I’ve been in love other times before but none have compared to this.
I guess what helps me get by is just to realize that every experience we have in life is helping us learn something that we need to learn. Right now my lesson is to learn how to let go, how to be alone. Maybe someday someone else will come along who has more to teach me, but then, now, and always I know I have those memories, those moments in my life like you described. I’ll always have those to hold on to.
Wow Aiden, I think you have replied yourself instead of me already.
“Right now my lesson is to learn how to let go, how to be alone. Maybe someday someone else will come along who has more to teach me, but then, now, and always I know I have those memories, those moments in my life like you described. I’ll always have those to hold on to.”
I just don’t know what to say, as I read my tears started falling I couldn’t control it, those word fill me with joy a yet sadness but it’s a kind of sadness that bring you happiness cause the love is always there ,the times we spent together, I just feel embrace with love right now ^_^…. thank you for helping notice that love happens but it never end.
Thank you too Shajais for opening your heart to your feelings and turning it into a beautiful experience.
sir surely one of the heart touching romantic writings i have read.. u can seriously make sumone feel romantic after reading this.. very impressive
Thank you Harshdeep for your kind words.
”People love and get hurt, and heartbroken many of them either fall into depression or turn toward avoidance…”
The idea of a strategy of ‘avoidance’ developing has always fascinated me – I know I’ve been there.
It’s this.. assumption.. that what has happened *will* happen again that seemingly, to my mind, causes many to avoid letting themselves enjoy future moments where things *can be* better.
Even taking a pseudo-statistical viewpoint for a moment – it would be.. highly likely.. that *every* future relationship lead to emotional pain.
Now, there is a chance that a future relationship could go ‘wrong’ – but there’s also a chance it could go wonderful right.
Learning from our past mistakes to encourage relationships to go wonderfully right would seem healthier and more empowering.
We can choose to make a difference to our lives.
I love this blog!
ChrisF
Well you know the point already, “Learning from our past mistakes to encourage relationships to go wonderfully right would seem healthier and more empowering.” and I am so glad that you know.
Thank you for your feedback Chris.
I am a young teenager, only 16. Having read this spoke to my heart in the brightest sense. My lover, my everything, decided another would make him happy; he left me for pleasure. I gave him everything, did everything he asked, poured my soul out to him. Months have passed -and yet- I still mourn every day at what was. I cannot remember a moment these past 4 months where I have smiled or been elated. My first smile grew from reading this amazing passage. A relationship like mine, that ended so crudely, had only scarred my heart. Now… I can breathe. I think now I fully understand what love is.
Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.
Hold on to that smile Kelly and many more will follow, for sure. Life is waiting for you and so is love…
Hi,
I think that the post written above is the bitter truth of life.
Yes, she will always be alive in my heart, till my last breath, her presence, blessed me. I got to know this sacred and eternal feeling due to her.
I know, people shared above love someone truly, but a question still arises in mind, ” Why this happens , if you truly love someone, Why someone touches your soul and gets away.”
You said ” It may stretch itself to a day, a week, a month, a year or even a few years, but it always comes one day to take you in its healing and invigorating embrace.”
Months have passed, about an year, still that day has not come. time seems to crawl when I miss her..
What I have learned is, Love is a bliss, satisfaction, happiness but only if you don’t expect anything from the person you love. It hurts like hell, if you expect something.
“Love for the sake of Love”.
Your post really helped me.
I am truly thankful to you..
ARYA
I don’t know if you can help me ,but I have been married 33 years to a wonderful man ,and I have so many words to say from my heart but no eloquence to say them ,I feel that our life together has written a beautiful timeless symphony., and yet I am at a loss as how to put this in to words . How do you write things with such and express things so easily?
Thank you for commenting Marti. Well JUST SAY IT.
What is stopping you from expressing yourself?
just a reflection of what i think , infact what i have experienced.truly matches , may be i am also in true love.i have always confused in true love and i also do believe there is nothing like first love and last love.its the love that u want and its that love that sumone gives u,and dat also for the whole life.we change and change for good in love, n i have changed for good…..n i realised that wen people said so.self realisation-everything that i have realised is cumin out to be true in every books and internet blogs…..
Unconditional love is a great thing. We should love other without condition and hold them near and dear to our hearts forever. You are so correct, even after someone leaves our lives, we have the wonderful memories to hold near to our heart. Love teaches us many lessons!
Thanks for this article.
I embraced ‘The Moment’ whilst I was reading through! I separated from my boyfriend recently… It was the most heart-wrenching experience of my life so far, but with your help… I’m going to remember all my passed experiences with and without him with no regrets. I will learn to appreciate everything that’s happened to me as LIFE. Life is a blessing, and this includes all the ‘bad’. Of course I call it ‘bad’ whereas in reality, all of our sorrows can be accompanied by memories of the good as well… how can we recognize the good if there wasn’t bad also? They work simultaneously… failings make us improve…
Just, thank you for writing this. I’m getting more and more powerful every waking moment. I’m remembering the past with a smile, as well as tears. The future will surprise me, I’m sure, and I’m looking forward to just getting on with LIFE.
Thank you.
i just can’t keep my tears..this was gorgeous!!
Hi,
Thanks alot for writing such a beautiful piece. Just came across this article, when it was badly needed. It hurts so bad when you have to let go, and there’s no way to escape that suffering. You want to cry out Loud, where no one would hear you. I guess we could just learn to accept when its gone, and move on collecting all the blessing it gave you while it lasted.