Love In The Shower

It remains a darn great mystery (and I'm sorry for the cliche). Until now. Unfathomable, as they say.

Why is love so 'effin' hard to understand, even geniuses lose their smarts? I'm not a genius of course, but I thought I had some to lose. Early evening was preparing for the night, not a red sky to shepherd delight. I was lazily taking a shower after such enormous effort to pull myself to the bathroom. There, I caught myself trying to figure something, which in the end, still wouldn't make sense.

Guess I was talking to someone invisible, like the other me, who lives in my head forever. I like her a lot, always busy with productive things like gardening, painting, baking pastries, making high-fashion clothes, all things I wish I should be doing. Just that her world's so very intangible and perhaps too wonderful to be true. Anyway, that's a sidebar.

But I went on asking the other me, "What can you say about this shit?" Love.

Silence. And more of it. And maybe the sound of water from the shower and to the drain. Waiting for an answer to no avail, I started.

Love is that feeling you don't understand, you can't explain, plus all its pointless cliches.

Love is like the ocean too deep. You fall, you're drowned.

(Count this joke in.) Love is like the rosary, full of mysteries. (Because love has to be, at all times, mysterious. Period.)

Love is like strawberries, sweet and sour; coffee, bittersweet.

Love is amazingly all-encompassing.

It's this.

It's that.

It's blah blah blah.

While I went on weaving together all I know about what love is and what it's like, perhaps the other me was pruning her roses and dandelions, so colorful and luscious.

She: Have you come to a conclusion?

Me: Yeah, I think.

She: And?

Me: That there's no way I can understand it.

She: Makes sense.

I shrugged.

She: How much have you got?

Me: Don't know. A lot.

She: And a lot more. --- There's too much about love, dear. Too many truths as there are too many lies.

Me: Meaning?

She: Meaning, you're right.

There's no way you can understand it now. But check this reality facing you. In love, everything is splendid, everything is terrible. Everything is imaginable, everything is impossible. Everything is worth it, everything is unbearable. Everything is a sweet dream and everything is a nightmare. And every single thing can be a truth at the same time a lie. How tricky, how playful!

There are as much "facts" about love as much as the love stories told. Drowning and perhaps saturating. What should we believe in? Which truths apply to us? And in the end, who's there to know?

Me: Amazing, isn't it?

She: Yes, indeed. And may you make sense of it when the right time comes.

Me: Right time?

She: There's a right time for you to conclude what it really is.

Me: Yeah? When I find Mr. Right?

She: Maybe. Maybe not. Far later, I guess. --- I'm afraid, oftentimes than not, love stories go on like they never have to end. Love is a long story, dear. Maybe even longer than life itself.

Me: When's the right time though?

She: When you're old enough to conclude your life. Because you have to contribute to the pool of bewildered philosophies.

Me: And what if in the end I don't have anything to say?

She: Nah. You're one of those love-crazed people who find love so amazing. You must have one.

Me: Or else?

She: Or else, you won't die.

Me: Oh, thank you.

And the sound of water from the shower and to the drain. "Nice dream." *smiles*