unlimited

Here's a beautiful passage, in touch with this post's theme:

Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good times and bad. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.

Love is content with the present; it hopes for the future and it doesn't brood over the past. It's the day-in-and-out chronicles of irritations, problems, compromises, small disappointments, big victories and common goals.

If you have love in your life, it can make up for a great many things you lack. If you don't have it. no matter what else there is, it's not enough.

*sigh* All in all, it's been a rather crummy Christmas. Been cooped up at home too much, though I suppose my Christmases have been fairly solitary affairs. This one is darked with the glom of divorce... Last big blowup was when I was in Standard 3 I think. My dad brought it up again, a few days ago. Heard the argument from my com room. It's always been rather inevitable, given he's rarely around anyway. I've always wished I had a more normal family. One with loving parents, who loved each other, who loved their children, who were honest, kind, patient, wise, and every other virtue I've ever extolled.

I think it'll be hard on my youngest brother the most. It's even hard for me. I don't really know the words to say. Everything's falling down, everything's crashing down now... (BTW, Here's a Reuter's story on divorce, which I saw in the Star couple days ago. Briefly, it says pre-divorce periods maybe harder on children).

I can only pray that I don't make the same mistakes, that I find someone I can grow old with (to paraphrase Robert Browning's 'Grow old with me'). Such a beautiful sentiment... God send I find such a one in my life.

Here's an amazing story, titled 'The Best Kind of Love': http://www.inspirationalstories.com/4/468.html (copy and paste it into your browser). I found it in May '92's Reader's Digest, but this is more convenient. It's that kind of love I want to find. In the mean time, heaven help me as I try to be one worthy of such love.

While I'm spamming this place with other peoples' works, here's one more, a poem:

After awhile you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul.
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
And company doesn't mean security.
And you begin to understand that kisses aren't contracts
And presents aren't promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head held high and your eyes wide open.
With the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child.
You learn to build your roads
On today because tomorrow's ground
Is too uncertain for plans, and futures have
A way of falling down in midflight.
After awhile you learn that even sunshine
Burns if you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate
Your own soul, instead of waiting
For someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure,
That you really are strong.
And you really do have worth.
by Veronica A. Shoffstall

I, um, edited it. Very slightly! I changed one word and cut out the last couple of lines. I hope no one comes after me with an axe.

Anyway, conclusion for today: Real, true, abiding love is something I yearn for, with all my heart. None of that superficial stuff, a comfortable love.

*sigh* Merry Christmas, everyone.