How to love

Am going to tell you something very serious - how to love someone.  Am not saying that I know all of all there is about love, or that I have prefected the art of loving, or that I have loved enough in my life to tell you and to lecture you what it's all about - but I can tell you that I have experienced a good kind of love, and from my experience and through my living example so far, I think it is the best kind of love, and the best way to love.  And I mean to say that that was how I was loved, how I was loved, was the best kind of loving.

Thanks to a young friend who asked me yesterday over a chat, "so what is the way to your heart?"  It sounds like a simple question in passing when someone is flirting with you but somehow I paused and thought about it very very seriously and I didn't want to answer it lightly because I knew then, everytime am asked a question about what I want in love - I will be serious about it and for now, that's the way I want it to be.

So I thought about it for a while and I think hours later, many errands later and with the question at the back of my head, it came upon me that I knew the answer all along; just that nobody ever asked me like that that got me thinking about it.

So here it goes, let me tell you what I think is the best way to love someone wholeheartedly and with all your heart.

To love her, you want to make her happy, is to understand why you fall in love with her.  You understand her dreams, her passions, her hopes and her nightmares.  

You want to see her happy, you want to see her living her life in fulfilling her dreams and hopes, you want to share the love she has for her life and doing what she loves.  It's very pure and simple, you love her so that you just want her to be happy, you know what makes her happy, you do all that you can to understand her dreams and you do all that you can in your might and your will to make her dreams come true.

You encourage her to work hard for her dreams, you support her in all the ways you could and you share her happiness when she achieve something, a milestone, etc on her road to success, her path to greater heights in her ambition.  You do all you can to inspire her, and to make her want to be better in her craft, her work, her career, her arts.

You also share her pain, her doubts, her demons, her nightmares.  You hold her in your embrace and your strong belief that if she just work hard at her dreams and plan a working system together, nothing will be left behind.  You reassure her that brighter future is ahead, and that her hard work would be rewarded.

You also bring laughters, silliness in her life.  You share your values and your positive outlook of life with her.   You show her living means making the best of the situation she is in, after working hard and trying her best, what she is to do next is to just enjoy whatever the work brings, and enjoy the moment after the battle.  You show her how you love other people, how you always find the best in others.  How you always choose to see the good in others.  

You may say that that is not a job of a lover, a partner, that sounds like a jobscope of a mentor, a person trainer, a company leader...but why not?  Why not have a love like that?  What do you want from your partner and your lover?

Anyway, that was how I was loved once, it will remain in me for the eternity to come.  The life I live now is an extension of his love, everything...my values, my music and my singing career, my friends, my families, my outlook for things, and things I've learned to care for - are an extension of the love I have experienced from him.

He saw my love for singing.  He saw it the first time he watched me sing on stage and decided that he wanted to help me - to sing, just to sing. Because he saw how singing makes me so happy.  So he just did what he could to help me sing more, he was really just a clueless boy about showbiz who got it all correct, he said, "I just want you to sing, and help you sing more."  For that was the most important essence for our love. He wanted to make me happy, he knew what makes me happy, he wanted to help me do more of what makes me happy.

Everything else came naturally.  He made me take driving lessons so that I could drive myself to all the auditionas there were to come, to all the rehearsals that I would need to attend.  He bought me a keyboard so that I could learn to play and help myself in music.  He bought me the best seat in a theatre show so I could watch the show and learned a thing or two, and to enjoy the show.  But he only bought one for me so he could save some money (because the ticket was so expensive) and he knew that I didn't mind going to the show by myself...the list goes on.

When I failed an audition or did badly at a performance, he would hold me and let the tears flow.  He would then tell me not to worry, "Don't worry, now you just need to do it many many more times.  Yes you may fail again but you will always be better if you work at it ok?  The important thing is that you will never be in the same place tomorrow, you will always improve if you practice, ok?"

He also shared his passions with me, he made me see how much he loved his bikes, his work, his silly friends and his family.  Through all that I learned too.  I was learning how to love, and live, without knowing it.

He also taught me the importance of making the best of the moment we are in.  He taught me how useless it is to stay angry over something petty, and how unhelpful it is for anything.  He taught me how to walk away from a bad situation and focus my energy on something more useful and positive.  He taught me the importance of speaking softly, the wonders of getting something done by just smiling sweetly and request softly.

He taught me how to enjoy a simple life with simple joys of eating simple food, reading quietly, enjoying someone's company without needing a conversation.

He taught me the joy of enjoying one's surrounding, by jogging, cycling all around town and beyond.

The joy of photography, writing, reading, eating, sleeping...

I will end here, I hope I've said simple enough for my thoughts to come through.  Love doesn't need to hurt, love can be simply glorious, bright abd full of joy.  So I urge all of us to love well, love deeply...

Janet

October 7th, 2012

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Justin aka Sitting Ducks, was my, I quote W. H. Auden:

He was my North, my South, my East, and West, 

My working week and my Sunday rest, 

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song...

He departed on Oct 3rd, 2010 while doing what he loved.  I hope to continuously commemorate his love through my singing and life.