When you’re a teenager, love is mostly about attraction—the butterflies, the infatuation, the sudden rush you get whenever you talk to that girl or boy. And as you journey through it, it slowly moves toward intimacy, physical attraction—at least for us boys (I’m a boy!).
But then you grow up. You settle down. There are responsibilities, a job, marriage, maybe kids. Love becomes something very different. It’s more about companionship, having someone to talk to, someone who fulfills your emotional and physical needs. And most importantly… will that person stay with you during the worst phase of your life? Or do they have a breaking point after which they simply walk away?
And to answer that question, let me walk you through a few simple stories about love.
The Love of Parents
The Accident
I once met with an accident.
I somehow made it home, my knee bleeding and my ankle badly cut. The moment my mother saw me, she panicked.
“Oh my God… what happened?”
She immediately called my uncle, and the two of them rushed me to the doctor.
As the doctor started cleaning the wounds with cotton and iodine, it burned like hell. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I started crying.
The doctor smiled and said, “Come on! Crying for such a small accident?”
But you know what?
My mother couldn’t control herself either.
She started crying with me.
She felt my pain.
And that… that is love.
The very same woman who shouts at me every single day for the smallest things suddenly couldn’t bear to watch me in pain. Those weren’t fake tears. They were real. She was hurting because I was hurting.
My Childhood
They handled so much, brother. Seriously.
If I were the parent of myself, I would’ve probably abandoned that child when he was one or two years old.
Every other day… every other day!
I was being taken to the hospital for one thing or another.
And my parents, with a meager income, no savings, and a house with a leaky roof, still decided to take me to a private hospital nearly 30 miles away. Every single time. No matter what.
And even today, if my sister or I have a little fever, we’ll immediately be taken to a private hospital where the bill could easily equal a month’s budget.
But when the exact same thing happens to my father or mother?
“Oh, it’s alright.” “I’ll be fine.”
They’ll just buy a random tablet from the nearby medical store and move on.
It doesn’t matter if it’s severe back pain or a terrible asthma attack.
Man… you just don’t know how it feels. I had asthma in the past, and it honestly feels like you’re choking to death out of nowhere.
My dad goes through it every now and then. At three or four in the morning, he’s coughing, struggling to breathe, suffering quietly…
…and he never wakes us up.
We usually hear the whole story from Mom the next day.
Finding True Love
They never change.
I still wonder… how the hell can someone love you so much without expecting anything in return? What on earth?
And then I ask myself…
Will I ever find a partner like that?
Someone who’s in it for a lifetime. Someone who says,
“Whatever happens—rags to riches or riches to rags, paradise or misery, life or death… I’m with you.”
Man…
I honestly think the answer for me is probably no.
Not because I don’t want it. I do.
I know it takes a lot, a lot of time to build something like that, and I’m completely okay with it. I’m willing to fight for it until we get there.
The same thing happened with my parents.
They must’ve decided to separate almost a thousand times. Even after I was born, there was a time when my mother packed her things and left the house.
You feel me?
But somehow…
All that struggle, patience, compromise, and even those fights turned into something so beautiful.
They’re still the best couple I’ve ever seen.
And I should also tell you—they still fight almost every day over the smallest things. They still get angry at us kids for every little thing.
And honestly…
I love it.
Because when you truly care about someone, you can’t just stop caring. You can’t simply ignore the things you believe are wrong according to your own morals and values. If you genuinely love someone, you’ll argue, you’ll disagree, you’ll get frustrated, and you’ll still choose to stay.
And after seeing all of this, I know what I want.
I’d love to have a partner who argues with me over the little things, who genuinely, deeply cares about me.
I’d love to have kids—at least two of them.
And yes… I’d still want to live with my parents.
After twenty years of watching them, I feel like I’ve learned a thing or two.
But at the end of the day…
I think it’s mostly luck.
You never truly know the character of a person until life pushes them to their absolute breaking point.
So I’ll leave that part to luck…
…and to the Almighty. ;)
Why Love?
But sometimes I wonder…
What if I’m just not lucky enough?
What if I end up in a relationship that completely breaks me, leaves me attending hundreds of therapy sessions, and even after I walk away, it leaves a permanent mark on me—trust issues, fear, emotional scars…
Is it really worth taking that chance?
I don’t know, man…
A relationship can give you almost everything you could ask for. But when you’re going through the absolute worst phase of your life, nothing can replace having someone who simply refuses to let go of you.
At least, that’s how I see it as a man.
I don’t know, man…
I’m genuinely scared of this decision.
Thankfully, I still have another four or five years before I really need to think about it.
Come on, man…
I’m only twenty-two.
But then the other side of my mind says…
What gives if you never explore everything life has to offer?
Having a real partner.
Building that bond.
Having kids.
What’s the real purpose of life?
You might ask, “Why do you even need all that?”
Well…
Why do you still go to work every day?
For a bigger house?
A nicer car?
Money?
But for whom?
As time passes and you reach your forties, you’ll start feeling incomplete, undisciplined, and a little lost. Life can slowly become a series of mood swings and random choices with no real direction.
That’s why I feel we all need someone.
Someone who calls you because you aren’t home by five o’clock in the evening.
Someone who’s genuinely worried.
And maybe a little kid waiting at the doorstep, excited to see you come home.
Suddenly, every body ache, every fever, every difficult day feels a little smaller.
You have a reason to keep going.
A reason to survive.
A fire that refuses to die.
I believe love can give people incredible strength. It gives them hope, courage, and the will to fight through things they never thought they could.
I believe in God.
I believe in the idea of karma.
Just have faith.
Then life doesn’t just feel fair…
It feels fantastic.
A lot of spirituality, huh?
