Falling in love means surrendering

These violent delights have violent ends and in their triumph die. Like fire and powder which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey is loathsome in its own deliciousness and in the taste, confounds the appetite. Therefore, love moderately. Long love doth so. Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

–Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 6 Scene 2

Fall in love they say. Let yourself be taken over by the feeling, consumed by it. Hold nothing in as, the only way to fully feel anything, is to submerge yourself in it, get lost in it. Be careful, though. Take it one step at a time. Don’t fall face first, don’t give everything away, in hope that this time things will be different. Give; but only just enough, so that even if you get hurt, it won’t kill you.  Your mind spins listening to it all, pieces of advice that contradict in every word. You try to live every moment; in moderation. Just so, just quite, just enough. Just as much as you get in return.

If any type of love turns into a carefully planned transaction –calculating timing, quantity, quality and compensation– then it ceases to be love. It’s a contract. There is no moderation to love. There is no scale, form of measurement, no boundaries or red lines to be drawn, and there is no way to say that it is too soon, too much, not enough or not soon enough, too intense or not intense enough, when you do feel it.

Woe to those who have never been rendered speechless and unable to move by its force. Because only one who has never felt it still has the ability to deny its existence, honestly cautioning measure in feelings. They are the only ones who can maintain the illusion that any kind of control can be applied to emotions. They are the only ones that can carry on preaching rationality and limitation in the things you unveil and give to someone.

Logic and love; two sides of the same coin, doomed never to exist on the surface together. Go ahead and try to spin that coin on its rim keeping both in the air at the same time; at some point it will fall flat on the table, leaving only one of the two topside. If it’s logic, you’re in luck; you get to keep your sanity one more time. Your feelings will remain in tact, you will give nothing more than you choose to, time will pass and you will lose nothing. But neither will you gain anything.

When you’re in love you’re speeding on an endless highway with severed brakes; nothing to stop you until your tank empties of fuel. And with every mile, with every acceleration, at every turn, your adrenaline spiking, you hope that that damn tank never runs out.

Those who have experienced it, true and real, biting into their very being, stripping them of their armor and demolishing the walls they’ve spent a lifetime –and then some– building around everything they’ve chosen to keep hidden away from the world, can only describe it as a force of nature, an element with its own volition; uncontrollable and unavoidable.

If you’re able to control anything about it, it’s not real.

All loves are true; they’re just not all real. Real love is when there is no conflict in you, no doubt that what you feel is worth every second, every heartbeat, every touch, every fear and every tear. Real love is when your mind, your body and your heart are in perfect sync, all in agreement, speaking in one voice, in another’s presence. All speeding towards something, someone, the collision inevitable; and so desired.

Each piece of you gives its dominance away to the next. Your mind falls silent, what you think you know cringing in the sudden light that has set the dark on fire, as your body begins to stir. A faster heartbeat, a tightness in your stomach, shaking and shivering, give way to peace, warmth and a fullness in your heart. A completeness, even if it’s imagined, as if every piece you’ve ever been, consciously or unconsciously, searching for has suddenly found its way to you. And it all seems to make perfect sense, as if this is the way it was meant to be all along, as mind, body and heart fade into one, bringing it all full circle.

Interest warms and becomes lust, lust burns and fades into love. When the flames of the wildfire die down, if there’s still something there among the ashes, if a steady burning flame remains, then you have love; one that can withstand the elements and burn forever.

Your rational thinking still exists but no longer controls your reactions. Your actions are overcome by emotions, not by what you know to be right. You know nothing; all you do is feel. And it can be confounding. Past experiences, whether they are your own or those that have second-handedly affected your life, cease to exist, they cease to apply, they no longer make any sense and heed no warning. Because this time it’s different. Every time it’s different.

Yes, “these violent delights have violent ends”. Though, anyone who has ever tasted them can tell you that even their violent ends are worth every moment.

Love has no moderation; it doesn’t come too soon, or too quickly. Nor does it come late. It arrives precisely when it’s supposed to, whether you’re ready for it or not. And there’s no stopping it or controlling it.