leap year

I'm only going to do this once, but if you have the time... and patience, I guess it's worth a read.

(for whoever is curious to what my final year project was about)

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We feel it and we see it, in our own lives or others. For those who are

blessed, both. Sometimes it spills out as an emotion, so strong and

overwhelming it has to overflow from inside of us - a place shallow

enough for us to reach into and yet too deep to wholly comprehend.

Other times it comes as a commitment - fathers and daughters,

mothers and sons. It becomes everlasting to everlasting, without

reason or rationality, an effect almost without a cause. And then there

is pop culture love, as I would call it. Love that envies, love that lusts;

we wonder if the word 'love' should really even be used at all. Can love

be contained in a mere word when we see it flung about so frivolously

and flippantly everyday, and yet described by the great poets of yesteryear

as 'as vast as the ocean' and as deep as the sea?

My acquaintance with 'love' has left me chasing after happiness and

fleeing from a broken heart. It's left me in a place where I dare not

hope, but desperately want to believe.

There is a Love however, that I've come to know. Some say it's the

greatest Man can ever know for themselves. I hope this story of Love,

or at least what I have come to know about it, be told in the stolen

moments and borrowed words that follow.

Words put letters on paper, but photographs leave untold memories

on a page.

To be honest, as cliché as the topic of love might be to some people.

What inspired this entire quest of finding the meaning why love is the

greatest was the impact of love on life, and how it can be both simple

and vastly complicated… and also how incredibly broken I could feel

from a heartbreak caused by some boy I now used to know. Pardon

me if this sounds like another teenage sob story, but please do trust I

have thought through this project with the utmost rational mindset.

Through a series of interactions with the people around me, I have

caught a glimpse into why love, for them, is the greatest.

When I chose the theme of love, I was already expecting to get a lot of

criticism on how it was predictable, or overdone. However, I find that

Love is something that most people avoid talking about because they

think it is self explanatory, awkward or difficult to explain.

In my 4 month journey of disecting and scrutinising the idea of love, it

sometimes felt distant and alien, other times, it was overwhelming and

hit so close to home. Growing up in a loving environment, my parents

did a fantastic job in raising my siblings and I in the way they thought

best. They showered us with love and were always fair in their rewards

and punishments. You could say I had a very sheltered childhood. Then

teenage hood came and nobody told me life and love would be thrown

together in a mess and be hard to understand. I learnt the hard way that

sometimes loving something does not mean always owning it. I learnt

that you could not measure love in units. Either you are or you are not.

I learnt that love and loving someone or something was much more than

just a feeling. Every so often, Love is a commitment; to stick together in

the face of adversity, for better or worst.

Quite aptly described by fantasy novelist Patrick Rothfuss in his book,

The Wise Man’s Fear, he writes -

“Anyone can love a thing because. That’s as easy as putting a penny in

your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love

them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.”

What is it about love that inspires and encourages?

What kind of love is considered right or best?

Why is love greater than faith or hope?

And so these questions sparked off the burning desire to find out more

about this elusive yet coveted thing called: Love.

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So what about Love inspires you?

Drop me a note, and I'll send you a little something.

deborahquek@gmail.com

leave me your home addy too!