It’s the universal topic that could get us talking for hours. It’s the reason for the joy every person feels. It’s even the reason why some experience heartbreaks that are unutterable. Yet for all the cause and effect of this, we still continue to pursue it.  To find meaning in it and live with all its ups and downs.

Do you love him?

That question still lingers in my brain even after I heard a friend ask it.  And it made me wonder, why does love have to make the world go ’round?

Even in a short time, is it possible to really love and care for someone so deeply? Even if the moments you’ve shared can still be counted on your fingers?

You’ll never really learn love until you’re married and have grown old together.

Then that phrase ring back from the corner of my mind, as an old man iterated his life with his darling wife and how time has changed the meaning of love for them.

If that’s the case, what is this love that young people keep on saying? What kind of love does this Hollywood-driven and Korean-drama obsessed society portray nowadays that makes everyone crazy to find someone to share their affections with?

Sometimes it bugs me that being single nowadays connotes being weak and helpless, alone and stupid. Does it really have to be that way? Can being single means you’re strong enough to stand for yourself instead of being solitary and neglected?

We now use the word ‘love’ so loosely that it somehow is losing its meaning in a world that really needs it so badly. It hurts me deeply when I see broken relationships. Divorce becoming an option in a marriage makes me sick. When I hear stories of parents abusing their child for doing something not wrong, I cringe within. When a child rebel against their parents’ to ‘pursue his/her passion,’ it saddens me so bad.

So if love rules the world, why are still experiencing a world of wars – within a relationship, within a home, within a country?

Why would someone worry about loving someone, when all love does is bring heartache to a person? Why even pursue it?

It’s easy to say yes to that person who asked me that question – which I actually did – because I know that’s what she wanted to hear.

But in reality, love – in all its glorious form – is always growing all the time. And I believe, whatever affinity I am right now, it could say – love can grow if I let. It can be nurtured and cherished. It requires work and continues efforts for both parties. It can inhabit within us through time if we take care of it.

Because if we don’t, it will surely die even before it starts to bloom.