..something i picked up at church this sunday:
The 4 hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but spiritual exercises.
1. To say “I was wrong”.
2. To say “I am sorry”.
3. To include the excluded.
4. To return love for hate.
So true, specially the last one. 
“When you love someone.. Truly love them, friend or lover, you lay your heart open to them. You give them a part of yourself that you give to no one else, and you let them inside a part of you that only they can hurt – you literally hand them the razor with a map of where to cut deepest and most painfully on your heart and soul.
And when they do strike, it’s crippling – like having your heart carved out. It leaves you naked and exposed, wondering what you did to make them want to hurt you so badly when all you did was love them. What is so wrong with you that no one can keep faith with you? That no one can love you? To have it happen once is bad enough.. But to have it repeated? Who in their right mind would not be terrified of that?”
– Acheron, in Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Devil May Cry
How true. Love hurts, love sucks, it cuts like a knife, and all that. So why throw ourselves back into the fray? Why do we think love is one of the shiny shimmering prizes that life has to offer?
Call me a masochist, but I think that in order to appreciate true happiness, you’ve got to hurt a bit along the way. You need to go through all the ups and downs to know at the end that what you hold so tenderly in your heart is the real deal. And I firmly believe in the old adage that says that anything of worth doesn’t come cheap or free.
So bring it on.
the following is something i used to keep in my old email inbox (since 2003, i think). i know, i know – it’s pretty old. but the idea of it is something that holds true today as it did years ago, and it will still hold true for me years down the road. read it and let me know what you think.
“A Love That Bites”
by Paolo Manlapaz
I’m going to fall in love someday. One day, perhaps from out of the
blue, perhaps from behind my back, some wonderfully precious lady is
going to grab one of those caveman type clubs and send it crashing down
over my head. She’s going to make me see stars. For days I’m going to be
in a smiling stupor. Maybe I’ll even drool a bit. And I’m going to be in
love.
This love is going to be neither cheap nor easy. It’s not going to be a
plastic ring bought at the corner dimestore. It’s not going to be a
brass ring purchased at some commercial mall. It’s going to be a set of
diamonds on a ring of gold. This ring will not come from a gemstore
though. I’m going to craft it myself. I’m going to travel through vales
and hills, up mountains, and down chasms in search of rich mines. I’m
going to smelt the ore, fashion the ring, cut the diamonds, and forge
this magnificent jewel. It’s going to shine in the sunlight, glitter in
the moonlight, and it will last for more than a thousand years. And it
will be for her.
Now I don’t want this love to be a bed of roses, painted or otherwise. I
don’t want it simply sweet and sugary. I don’t want it to be just like
peppermint bits or chocolate kisses.
I want this love to hurt.
I want this love to bite.
I want this love to be able to bite.
I’m not talking about love bites.
I’m not talking about ant bites, mosquito bites, bee stings.
I don’t want to be bitten by some pitiful insect that I can slap away
or crush with barely a thought. I want to be bitten by something with
teeth.
I want to be bitten by a great white shark or the king of the jungle.
I want a piece of myself to be torn away and chewed on. I want to
bleed.
I’m not crazy and I’m not a masochist. I have never enjoyed pain and I don’t like being hurt. But I want my love to be able to hurt me. I want my love to be someone I can fuss over, someone who’ll have me pulling
out my hair in fistfuls trying to decide whether she’d rather have the
dozen roses or the Valentine truffles. I want my love to make me chew my
fingernails down to my knuckles when it’s almost midnight and she’s not
home from the office yet. I want my love to make my heart pound
ceaselessly when I worry about her driving on highways inhabited by
gas-pedal-pushing madmen. I want my love to make me pace back and forth,
wearing deep trenches in the carpet, when it’s 8:30 and she hasn’t
called yet. I want my love to push big, fat, watery tears from the
hiding places in my eyes, down my flushed cheeks, off my hardened chin,
and onto my clenched fists when she yells the word “hate” in my face and
calls me a jerk. I want to feel the cold kiss of steel through my heart
should my love ever leave me all alone.
And should my love ever die, I want to weep for days on end. I want to
scream and kick and curse and hate. I want to feel as if my body were
being burned by fierce flames. I want to thrash madly about and when my
spirit is spent, I want to feel a noose tighten around my neck, slowly
choking me.
With my hands clasped about my throat, I want to feel cold, as if ice
had slid though my veins. I want to feel the heavy black weight loss and
love on my frail shoulders.
I want my love to hurt, hurt as painfully as can be.
I want to feel every bit of this pain.
I want to feel every bit of this love.
I want this because love that doesn’t hurt is love that isn’t real.
And I want the real thing for me and my true love.
“… So I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty-five days a year. I was still in elementary school at that time — fifth or sixth grade — but I made up my mind once and for all.”
“Wow,” I said. “And did your search pay off?”
“That’s the hard part,” said Midori. She watched the rising smoke for a while, thinking. “I guess I’ve been waiting so long I’m looking for perfection. That makes it tough.“
“Waiting for the perfect love?”
“No, even I know better than that. I’m looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you’re doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don’t want it anymore and throw it out the window. That’s what I’m looking for.”
“I’m not sure that has anything to do with love,” I said with some amazement.
“It does,” she said. “You just don’t know it. There are times in a girl’s life when things like that are incredibly important.”
“Things like throwing strawberry shortcake out the window?”
“Exactly. And when I do it, I want the man to apologize to me. ‘Now I see, Midori. What a fool I’ve been! I should have known that you would lose your desire for strawberry shortcake. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a piece of donkey shit. To make it up to you, I’ll go out and buy you something else. What would you like? Chocolate mousse? Cheesecake?’”
“So then what.”
“So then I’d give him all the love he deserves for what he’s done.”
–from Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
more of the stuff that makes my inbox a comfort and a source of smiles at times…Ü
“it doesn’t matter where you go in life, or what you acquire. it’s who you have beside you that really matters. Choose your love, and then.. Love your choice.” — from eileen Ü
“things happen because we choose to, there may be regrets but blaming is not an option. we are where we are because we brought ourselves there. we get happy, we get sad, but most importantly — we learn.” — from rl Ü
“life is so fragile. we are all vulnerable. and we all, at some point in our lives, fall. we will all fall. we must carry this in our hearts, that what we have is special, that it can be taken away from us, and that when it is taken away from us, we will be tested. we will be tested to our very souls. it is these times, it is this pain, that allows us to look inside ourselves.” — from pfleider Ü
“quoted from a homily: ‘kapag nagmahal ka at nagsimula kang mainis, isipin mo na lang na: bukas na lang ako magagalit; ngayon, mamahalin ko na lang muna sya..’” — from mike Ü
“if you laugh really loud, talk spontaneously, and you don’t care what your hair looks like, you’re probably with real friends.” — from van Ü
“even after all this time/the sun never says to the earth,/’You owe me.’/look at what happens with/a love like that,/it lights up the whole sky.” – hafiz — sent by patty Ü
at eto: alam ko di na uso, pero hanggang ngayon ay benta pa rin sa kin…
“there are tulips in the street, there are tulips in the park, but nothing compares to our two lips meeting in the dark… –love letter ni boy kay inday” — from didi Ü
“had i known but yesterday what i know today, i’d have taken out your two gray eyes and put in eyes of clay. and had i known but yesterday you’d be no more my own, i’d have taken out your heart of flesh and put in one of stone..”
-from fairy queen to Tam Lin (in an old Scottish poem)
some people wonder why i bother keeping really old messages and quotes in my phone’s inbox. here are a few examples of the little bites of wisdom that i would hate to delete:
“if you think happiness is all about sunshine, i guess nobody has told you about dancing in the rain..” –from didi Ü
“you need to feel a bit deprived at times, a bit lonely, and in a way incomplete.. because if you’ve got everything here on earth, would you still look up to heaven?” –from odal Ü
“the things that make us different from everybody else are the things that make us beautiful. so don’t change just to fit someone else’s standard – be the standard.” –from eminers Ü
“you don’t get to choose, you just fall in love. you get this person who is all wrong and right at the same time. and you know that you love them so much except that sometimes they drive you completely insane and nobody can explain it and the reason why it’s so confusing is because it’s love. but if love didn’t have any challenges, what would be the point?” –from van Ü
“there will be days when you get home from a party and forget what the fun was about. have a very long and intimate conversation, yet there are still words left unspoken. embrace your special someone, yet never have the strength to say you care so much. life tells us that happiness is never absolute. seize the moment, it may never come again.” –from van Ü
“you can walk into a room wearing a t-shirt and jeans, no make up, yet be the most attractive girl. for at the end of the day, the world will look up to you not because you look like the next top model, but because you are a thinking woman with opinions.. fashion sense helps, but brains will always be deadlier than a pair of stilettos.” –from krishna Ü
with thoughts like these, my inbox will always be full.Ü
“we’re living in momentous times. the events of a thousand years and more have all focused on these very days. the world, i’m told, is like that. centuries pass when nothing happens, and then in a few short years events of such tremendous importance take place that the world is never the same again. now’s the time to be alive – to see it all happen, to be a part of it. that makes the blood race, and each breath is an adventure.”
-the thief/merchant/spy Silk, from Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
words to live by when i feel like curling up at home and never coming out..
