"What is it really like to truly love?"

What is it really like to truly love?

I have always perceived love as something powerful and one that can make wonders. It is kind and sees way past the flaws. It is patient and doesn't keep a record of wrongs.

It will be heavenly and will every so often leave you breathless. But then life happens, stories of betrayal and infidelities surface, followed by deafening lies and alibis. There goes the never-ending fights caused by broken trust. Tears begin to overflow, the overthinking kicks off. Restless souls lose sleep. These unwarranted events eventually lead to shattered lives. It finally put an end to what was once impeccable, divine.

And so one's concept of love and its perfection slowly vanishes, it changes us, it destroys us, and will leave us completely devastated.

And you begin to question everything you ever believed in and all the things you hoped for. You become numb, asphyxiated, almost lifeless. You question your worth and even your mere existence. You get crazily mad, furious, unforgiving. Then you will gently feel the guilt. You go from putting all the blame in yourself for not being good enough to justifying a wrong done against you. You will hold yourself responsible to what was broken leaving the culprit sinless. And you will hate yourself for being you, for your frailties and your selfishness. You start to detest all the things you once loved. Then you would cry yourself to sleep every single moment you are awake and pour all the hate towards the person he cheated with. You try and make yourself despise the person you love. But you just can't. So you will forgive but get suspicious about everything. Then you will try even harder to forget the sin and forgive the sinner. Yet everytime you close your eyes, it haunts you.

And you will be confronted with a gazillion of questions left unanswered: How much are you willing to sacrifice for love? How much are you willing to forgive and let go? How much are you willing to love someone from afar if things will no longer workout? How much are our minds willing to forget to protect our peace? How much are we willing to endure to salvage the salvageable?

Then it'll hit you with the painful truth -- everything's different now, nothing will ever be the same. You can still love the person but you can no longer trust.

And so the question now, can love withstand in the absence of trust?

Personally, I don't know. But if there's one thing I have learned in this lifetime, it'll be this: You can never really unlove someone you have genuinely loved.

Because truly loving someone will give you feelings you never knew existed. It is destructive but glorious, painful but enchanting and it will always be chaotically beautiful.

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(Inspired by the Korean Drama Series "The World of the Married Couple", originally written last 17 May 2020)