MISTAKEN

UNEDITED SAMPLE LITERARY ARTICLE
By Jonah Aileen Oliva Reyes
IV - Enrico Fermi


I am different. I am the person who does not find pleasure talking about love. I am the person who finds it stupid and absolutely ordinary. You know, talking about is hearing just the same things, the same words, the same wonderful occurrences and the same stabbing pains. Beat it. Too typical and exaggerated.

By saying this, of course, a lot will not agree.

Perhaps I am just mistaken. Well, how will I know? I have never fallen too deeply before. People just come and go. They stayed with me, made me happy, jealous and angry but still they went away, and I guess, that is to be expected as always. I need not be hurt emotionally that is why, I get armed and protected at once, making sure that I will not give all the love there is and making sure that I keep a safe and comfortable distance. Believing the thought in that way, there would be nothing big enough for me to hold on to, so that as soon as the relationship eventually ends, I will be able to get back on my life again, alone and quickly unaffected. As if nothing painful ever happened.

But now, my hands trembled. My face began to heat up. And, my eyes felt like they could no longer swell. Now I feel the urge to vomit. To vomit the thoughts I have kept within me for so long.

I cannot believe I was wrong the whole time. I was wrong thinking that love, no matter how great it is, is just a silly excruciating experience. That only the masochists are brave enough to wholly accept the true definition of it and swallow agony whole-heartedly in the end. That nothing lasts forever and keeping more than enough for yourself would save you from the eternal suffering it bequeaths when it finishes off.

I was really mistaken. It was I that is silly. It was I that is a masochist, isolating myself selfishly. It was I that is pushing me to suffering, cutting off a perfect relationship too quickly. I fooled myself with lies.

In truth, love is not an idiotic experience but something that gives you life and truthful joy when its bearer loves you in return. It is the undeniable, powerful force that pulls you out of the atrocious darkness and pushes you to any obstacles you need to pass through. Forever giving you inspiration. Love is always bestowed as a gift - freely, willingly, and without expectation - We don't love to be loved; we love to love. Possessing it is to see a miracle invisible to others. Acquiring it is to see the meaning of life, to appreciate what there is in life and to love everything it comes with. Without a doubt, this is love, in its true form and manner.

I knew it is essential for me to be better. Embracing and admitting this new ideal changed everything in me. It gave me magical emotions beyond my reach. It gave me satisfaction I have never felt before. It gave me self-respect I have never earned before. As I grasp it, I have accomplished the point of completeness. Sense of fulfilment I now came to conquer.

I realized I am a dim-witted coward then. I feared love and feared having it. A hypocrite, in another point. I pretended I knew how to handle it well when in fact I took it mistakenly, losing the persons I should have never lost. But somehow, I thought, it needed to be like that. I have to learn it the hard way, because if not, I will never arrive at this sense of well being I blissfully feel. If not, I will never be able to appreciate the ultimate power of love.

Hence, there is nothing more to wish for, when someone is in love, for one gets to achieve anything and to give anything back. There is nothing more to seek for, when someone is in love, for one gets to see everything in a different light. There is nothing more to be sad of, when one is in love, for one gets to be so happy everything feels so right.

I changed for the better.

Now that I am totally renewed, I always remember the quote that served as a motivation during my struggle in my search of the truth. As one says from the movie Moulin Rouge, “The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”

I have, no doubt, learned life’s greatest lesson.