Just another four letter word

Have you ever wondered if this life is real? Have you ever thought that maybe we are all plugged into a big machine (like the Matrix) and that all that we experience, touch, taste, feel and believe is something that we, or the person that is controlling the machine, have dreamed up? Sometime I believe that we are all just heads, floating in a big black abyss. Sometimes I believe that we create our own experiences, people, relationships and lives and that no one else really exists- they are simply a figment of our own imagination. Sometimes I believe in other crazy things as well- but there is plenty of time to get to that later.

It's crazy, though, that I believe in stuff like talking heads and the matrix but I don't believe in the bible or religion or Father Christmas or the Easter bunny. None of us believe in those last things really. Not unless we're under the age of...ten? Nine? Eight? How old are you when you stop believing in the tooth fairy? I can't remember. As always, I am bound to offend and piss some people off with my beliefs and opinions. And, as always, my offer is a standing one: Read at your own risk. If you don't like what you read, please feel free to move onto the next website. Maybe God will be there. Who knows. If you don't believe in what I believe in, but you want to hear me out, then stick around- I'm sure to provide some form of entertainment- be it light, medium or somewhat heavy.

I believe in Love. It has the ability to heal, to mend and to re-awaken. It can literally lift us up from where we are and make us move without touching the ground. It can make us whole again. It can add all the colours of the rainbow to our lives. Love has the ability to create butterflies in our tummies and make our cheeks flush red with a single look. Love's touch can send shivers down our spines and candy-floss to our hearts. Love brings us closer together and helps us to see eye-to-eye. Love brings patience, tolerance and teaches us to be kind. In the presence of love, dark clouds do not exist. They float away to make way for the sun. Food tastes better and songs sound sweeter when love walks by. Everything is possible.

Take love away- now there's a problem. Not only do the dark clouds re-appear, but they bring their friends. The rose tinted glasses fall from your face and the colours that once painted your picture bleed down and form a brown puddle at your feet. The candy-floss makes a sticky mess of your heart and, where before there was music and fairytales, now there is only darkness. This darkness is so heavy that it can blanket you, and never let you up. It's the poison ivy that creeps around a forgotten garden gate. The pain is palpable. It's physical. The fibers of your heart tearing apart in the absence of love is more painful than the slow tearing of a band-aid. But, the pain that love leaves in it's wake is not the only thing that will get you. Grief, sorrow and the feeling of eternal loss will do quite nicely in destroying your soul. A big 'love' shaped hole forms in your heart, a total and eternal abyss- the ravine of no return. Losing love, after having had it in your life, is one of the most devastating things that could happen.

As I sit on my creaky old fence and contemplate the reality of religion, the bible, heaven and hell, I can feel the warmth of my belief in love warming my back as the sun does in winter. I gaze across the field to where another person sits- one leg on either side of her faded fence. The warmth of love doesn't reach her. Instead, she feels the cold breeze blow across her face and she looks up into the sky where the dark clouds pour in. She does not believe in love. Not at all.

What this girl believes of love is as devastating to me as finding out that Dasher and Donner and Dancer and Prancer don't really land on your roof-top on December 24th, don't really eat the mince pie or take a sip of the milk that was left out for them and, in fact, don't wear bells around their necks. My friend from the meadow believes in 'keeping things casual' and in 'being just friends'. She knows not of love's gentleness. She knows not of it's faith.

How, then, can I believe in love when I don't believe in all the other mythical things in life? Just as I believe that the tooth fairy is, in fact, my mum who crept into my bedroom after falling asleep on the couch, waiting for me to go to sleep, so too should I believe that love is a myth and that it does not exist. I cannot see love in front of my eyes. I cannot hold it in my hand. I cannot taste it on my lips or run my fingers through it. Love cannot hold me up when I fall down or speak to me when I question it. Love does not exist, magically, in the air. It doesn't make the wind blow softly or the sun shine brightly. It can't make my eyes glimmer or my hands shake. It simply cannot do those things. It simply can't.

And then, as soft as that candy-floss that coats my heart, the warmth reaches the back of my neck again, and I lean into it from my fence post. The brightness blinds me and blocks out the darkness that is that other girl sitting on her fence, not believing in love. Because, although I can never see love, I can feel it every day. Love hides in the depth of his ice-blue eyes. It settles in when he holds my hand and reaches out to me. Love holds me up when they think of me and sit around our dining room table, laughing and telling stories. Love speaks to me when she calls to say hello or when he's thinking of me.

If the choice is between sanity and madness, rain or sun, reality and make-believe or practicality and love then my choice is simple. I choose madness. I choose sun. I choose make-believe and I choose love. I choose to feel the electricity and the shivers and I choose to see the colours and hear the songs. I choose to smile, coyly, instead of grimace and get closer instead of farther away. Because, no matter how little or how much love you have in your life, no matter how big or how small that candy-floss coating may be, life is better when love has unpacked it's bags and announce that it's staying. We all need love, in some form or another. You can't deny it. Can you feel it? It just took your breath away and made your hair stand on end. Did you feel that? That tingle- that was love. Can you see it? The depth and twinkle in the other person's eye- that's love.

It's irrational and volatile. It's fascinating and frustrating. It's real but it isn't. Embrace it. Feel it. Appreciate it and share it. Love.