Their love story wasn’t one to fill many pages.
It was a night of revelry and spirits were high. They met at a bar while ordering their drinks. He wanted a dry martini and she’d asked for a beer. By the time their drinks were ready, their eyes had met. They spent the night dancing and chatting with each other. Numbers were exchanged and the night ended with a gentle kiss.
Soon, one date after another, they were in love.
They were a great couple. The kinds you see in movies. The ones you meet at parties. Always in sync and completely in love. If they fought, it was never in public. If there was an issue, it’ll be resolved in private. They understood each other’s choices and respected the other person’s space. It was a match made in heaven. They were each other’s soulmates.
Surprisingly though, they split up after 3 years.
What happened to their love? They fell out of it.
That’s all we heard. That was the only explanation given. Was it not love?
Just because it didn’t last forever doesn’t mean it wasn’t love.
Every single love story isn’t meant to last forever.
Thanks to cheesy love stories, saccharine-sweet romantic novels and legendary love tales, we’ve all come to believe that if our love is real, it’ll end with us walking hand-in-hand, looking into the sunset. We’re accustomed to believe that if our love is ‘real’, it will stand the test of time.
While there’s nothing wrong with believing in that love, you can’t hold a relationship at ransom just because it ended much before that.
Love doesn’t come with a timeline. It doesn’t give a guarantee to last a lifetime. Sometimes, love stays for the rest of your life and sometimes, it’s over in a few years. And both the times, it is love.
It’s love even if it’s just for a few years. It’s love if it’s for a couple of decades.
Love is defined by how it makes you feel. It doesn’t matter how long that feeling lasts.
What is the definition of true love?
Is it passion? Is it compatibility? Is it an understanding between the two people? Or, is it longevity?
Love may be the single most defining factor across the world but we all have our own definition for it. But whatever may be our definition, love can never and should never be about how long it lasts.
If your last relationship was all of 6 months and yet, it made you feel loved all the while it lasted, it was love. And if you’ve been with someone for over two decades and yet, haven’t felt much, it is clearly not love.
Love is an emotion. And emotions don’t come with a time period.
Sometimes, love lasts long after a person has left.
Whether it is due to death or any other unfortunate scenario, there are many love stories that are cut short by fate. However, while the couple is no longer together, the love remains. In fact, over time, it only increases in intensity.
There’s also the love that we feel long after the person has left us. You may have broken-up with someone, got dumped or walked-out but do you always stop loving that person?
There’s not much that we can do to control love. It rarely follows our plans. The only thing we can do is to feel it, embrace it and enjoy it.
A love story can end for various reasons. But just because it ended, doesn’t mean it wasn’t a love story, right?
We have to learn to stop analyzing love.
Yes, there’s that one person, our one true love. But on our way to finding that person, we can also meet a lot of different people and fall in love with them. And those love stories aren’t any lesser just because they ended earlier than expected.
Love is about passion. It isn’t about longevity.
No matter how long it lasts, love is indeed love.