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Love is not a mushy movie you watch over and over and that's all right

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Mehr Tarar
Mehr TararApr 08, 2018 | 14:17

Love is not a mushy movie you watch over and over and that's all right

That four-letter word that is the midnight inspiration behind many a book, poem, song, film, TV show, play, heartache, trauma, trouble, happiness, passion, emotional noise, quiet sublimity, state of harmony, and even outright war. Love. L-O-V-E. That love. It could be once in a lifetime, or a serial occurrence. It could be life-altering, or as ineffective as the 2014 anti-anxiety pills you hid in the back of your drawer. It could be anything but it is something that is unavoidable as long as you breathe. To love is human, and to err in love is very human.

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That one rare love does exist. Once, even twice, if you are Madhubala-esque romantic. That love. Love that realigns your core; moves the ground beneath your Louboutins; makes you giggly during solemn talks; you hear his voice in every song that plays on Spotify; you experience his Terre d'Hermès even in the whiff of breeze coming off the shadowy leaves of that giant oak in the park; you find his smile in the gorgeous eyes of the tall, tan, sinewy hero of the film you watch at 4am pausing every five minutes because of your absence of concentration; absentminded doodling of his name on the paper napkin that accompanied your large mochaccino and fluffy banoffee pie; blushing when he teases you like you never did even as a teenager you were decades ago; sleeping in his arms or with his voice whispering goodnight nothings to you when apart; waking up to his good-morning mushy texts that you wish to roll your eyes at but are kind of addicted to secretly; when in bright sunlight you close your eyes and feel his beautiful mouth writing poetry on that hidden mole on your nape; when his name appearing on your cracked-screen phone becomes the guiding light for your muddled, confused existence; when looking at his deeply-loved, million-times seen face your heart still misses a beat.

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That kind of love does exist, not just in a Nick Cassavetes movie, in an Audrey Hepburn dream, in a Love in a Time of Cholera, in Lord Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty”, in a Frank Sinatra ballad. Once in a lifetime. Twice, rarely.

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Photo: Screengrab/Netflix

Mostly, it is love, not actually. And because of the clichés, the tropes, the stereotypes that make you believe in the existence of that rare love, and you fall prey to the glossy packaging of the ideal love that isn’t there, you forget about the existence of that one brutal fact-checker: life. It hits you in the gut when you least expect it, and it kicks you in the butt while you think you have mastered the art of walking in your four-inch Manolos while giving a speech on existential crises of teenagers at a conclave for very smart people.

You are beautiful, intelligent, ambitious, in charge of your life, happily in love, clear-headed about not being a cliché of a girlfriend/boyfriend, making your own rules, and living a charmed romantic life until it dawns on you one starless night, half-asleep, that your love is anything but ideal. No love is. Except that rare one. Instead of being happy to be brought to real life, you feel your heart racing a tad unsteadily, your mind drawing crazy pictures as in a scene from a Fellini movie stuck in an old film reel, your perfectly manicured fingers fumbling for a Dunhill Light, and your iPhone X, only to see that there are no texts from him as he is away on a business tour in, where was it... Shanghai, Seoul, London, Prague, New York, Timbuktu, Mars....

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There is just one problem with most relationships anywhere in the world, of all ages, of all intensities, of all genders: expectation versus reality. Expectation is that one factor that is never factored in when perfectly sensible folks analyse their relationships in more painstaking detail than seasoned craftsmen forming impossibly exquisite embroidery designs on the forbidden wool of a Shahtoosh.

In real life, a billionaire doesn’t miss a chance to make another billion sabotaging his very important meeting with another billionaire because he has to run, or race in his S600 to tell the woman he loves he can’t live without her. In real life, the woman just silently cries or swears loudly while planning revenge on her uncaring beau thinking of who to hook up with that would make that a**hole jealous. There is no running through an airport — the changed security protocol being one reason — to stop a plane in which the woman of his dreams is leaving after waiting for him to propose. When a 30-year-old woman discovers she’s dying of stage four ovarian cancer, she doesn’t spend her last few months on earth crying what would happen to her heartbroken fiancé once she is six feet under. You live for yourself, trying to find your way through one day of chemo-induced craziness your body is fighting.

In real life, your perfect man/woman doesn’t politely decline that unapologetic sexual advance of a breathtakingly sexy woman/man. Fidelity is overrated, they say, as is monogamy. You don’t break your engagement with the perfect guy/gal because you fell in love with your tour guide, your travel agent, your yoga teacher, your penniless first boyfriend, your quirky first crush in college, your bodyguard. Only in a movie a gorgeous man tells you that you complete him, that you are the most amazing woman in the world, or that you have been sent to "zameen" only for him. Only in a movie a woman actually means it when she tells a man she has loved him from the beginning, and their live is forever.

Reality is harsh, not Chanel-fragranced, not covered in exquisite Swiss chocolate, not attired in an impeccable, slim-cut, Zegna suit, and comes in all shades of slouchy, wholesome, pot-bellied, balding, plus-size, greying hair, widening waist size, loud, ugly, cruel, sleeping-in-different-bedrooms hostility. Real life lovers don’t pine for one love all their life. They don’t get their one love’s name tattooed on a secret part of their body. They don’t see the face of their loved one in everyone the next fifty years of their life.

See, expectations versus reality, and the loser is you. But see, there is absolutely nothing wrong in accepting that real life is not a mushy movie you watch over and over. The love you have for one another doesn’t have to be violins, sunsets, walks in the rain and the perfect proposal with a six-carat diamond in the hand of a Gregory Peck, a Hrithik Roshan, a Fawad Khan and the breathless yes of a Grace Kelly, an Aishwarya Rai, a Nazia Hassan. Rearrange your expectations a little, and you make your own romantic movie in the very ordinariness of the love you have with that someone special.

The face may not bedazzle you in the morning light, the first kiss should be after brushing of teeth, there’s no post-snooze spooning, the goodbye kiss is hurried, the hugs banal, the intimacy terse, and the lovemaking doesn’t make you have an out-of-body experience, while sex, unannounced, turns into a ritual. There’re no love-you texts in your WhatsApp, your long messages mostly get only grinning emojis. The anniversaries pass by, no huge bouquets of lilies you adore, no new Dior bag, his birthday gift is a last-minute bought Boss aftershave, not that perfect Armani shirt he loved when the two of you went to buy something for you. That huge dinner you throw to celebrate his success while all he wants is a dinner-for-two on your patio overlooking the ocean.

It all matters, and none of it matters really. What matters is that you have someone to share your life with. You have that one person who is a witness to your life as it is. You have that one person who may not be a great kisser but who holds you tight when you wake up from a bad dream. You have that one person who is there without any pretext, without any pretence. There may not be odes about that one rare love in your life, but there is love every day. In the countless, tiny details of the regular life you lead. In the family you raise. In the home you build. In the naughty children you watch grow into beautiful adults. In the small things about one another that make you smile. In the frayed edges of reality that you paper with tenderness of your appreciation for one another. In the knowledge of accepting the best and the worst of one another, instead of expecting perfection from one another. Accepting is not a compromise. It is simply looking at life for what it is.

And love then just is.

Last updated: April 09, 2018 | 10:37
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