That dreaded time of year is coming up again: Valentine’s
Day. It’s been quite some time since I last posted. I apologize for that; I’ve
been breaking in my “boots.”
At
this point in time, I don’t see myself ever getting married. I started dating a
guy sometime around this past August/September. He didn’t know that I am not
fond of the idea of marriage for myself. We went over to my friend’s family’s
house one weekend after we had been dating a couple of weeks. We spent the
majority of the day there, laughing, talking, eating a nice, home-cooked meal, etc. As the night started to wind down, he thought it would be funny to pretend
to propose to me. He got down on one knee. He didn’t even have time to utter a
single word before I experienced a full panic attack. Difficulty breathing,
rapid heart beat, feels like a heart attack. Yeah, all that fun stuff. He
quickly apologized and said he would have never attempted such a prank if he
knew it would have that effect on me.
Needless
to say, I have a long way to go before I enter into a serious relationship.
The following essay was written in the Fall of 2009 and was
part of my application to UC Berkeley.
I
lay under the covers beneath the warm, quiet light, reading a book as I awaited
sleep to take me. There was one problem:
this book was not relaxing my mind. On the contrary, this literature was
stimulating my brain. I knew this was not an ordinary book.
One
of the most enlightening experiences a human can have is learning that other
humans share a philosophy about life similar to the one they have personally
developed. Through a modern book, I learned an ancient philosopher developed
ideas about life that I came to develop independently.
One
night, I began reading the book Sophie’s World. It didn’t take long for
that incomparable sensation when you read something intellectually stimulating
to occur at the back of my brain – almost as if my pesky little sister was
using a feather to tickle my frontal lobe.
As
I began reading the chapter on Plato, I became excited. The fundamentals of his
philosophy sounded familiar to me. I had somehow developed similar ideas.
We
both thought that ideas the human mind is capable of developing aren’t always
realistic and can’t be manifested in the actual world.
I
talked to my English teacher about my exciting revelation and she recommended I
read Phaedrus, a work by Plato. I couldn’t wait to delve into the
writing of my new mentor. It turned out that we also have similar ideas about
love: true love isn’t really
possible and humans always mess it up.
After
discovering that I thought in a way similar to an ancient philosopher, it felt
as though I had received an endorsement to expand on my thinking. I now know
that I have my buddy, Plato, to go to whenever I feel like I’m over thinking a
quandary.
I wrote this on January 1, 2014 (wanted a good start to the
new year) for an application to St. Edward’s University:
As children, we often initially
fear things that do not actually exist:
The monster under the bed, ghosts, etc. For me, personally, I still fear
something that does not exist here, in the physical world. I fear love. The
kind of love that is all encompassing and life changing. The scariest thing
about Love is that the average person thinks they have, at least at one point
in their life, experienced it. But, according to Plato, the highest Form of Love
does not exist here on Earth. My fear came into fruition when I first
encountered Plato and his theories. Though it did make complete sense to me
that humans are fully capable of thinking of, imagining, and analyzing concepts
that are not possible of occurring in the physical world, it also led me to
feeling disappointed. The scariest thing of all results when a person thinks
they are experiencing the Form of Love. Generally, this develops into a brief
happy period when everything is focused on this perceived occurrence of Love,
but eventually results in a great, agonizing downfall when the people involved
realize they are not actually experiencing Love. The root of this fear is my
first failed relationship. I thought I had met the Love of my life and we would
live happily ever after. Shockingly, this was not the case for my first high
school boyfriend. I then began to look outward for signs of Love and was
disappointed to find that I occasionally encounter elements of Love but never
the full and complete concept. Couples will enjoy hours, sometimes even days,
of blissful Love and Happiness, but then some element of reality hits and they
are brought back down to Earth. There are bills to be paid, a family member has
just been diagnosed with a chronic disease, the mother-in-law is still
determined to break-up the marriage, you begin to realize your partner isn’t
quite the person you thought he or she was when you first agreed to a committed
relationship, or your partner has changed into someone you don’t recognize and
don’t want to be with. My fear of Love represents my general fear and disgust
of the world. As much as I strive for and desire perfection, it, too, does not,
and will not, exist. Even if I dedicate the rest of my life to making the world
a better place, the imperfections and tragedies will still significantly
outweigh the Good in the world. I am still trying to figure out what I want in
and with my life, but it is frustrating and disappointing when those things I
begin to contemplate setting out to accomplish are either impossible or
non-existent. This self-discovery has benefitted me in that I am slowly
learning to cherish the small things and take one day at a time rather than
plan the next fifteen years of my life. I am learning that it is healthy and
important to have goals but also that there are so many things in life that are
unexpected that we all just have to roll with what comes at us. I hope that one
day, I am able to find a form of love. This love would be more about
companionship and support rather than passion and change. It would be realistic,
yet unexpected. It wouldn’t necessarily have to last a lifetime but be
significant enough that its memory would bring a lifetime of joy.
One of my Facebook friends posted this link:
Where do you and Love or love stand?
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