Started my day in the most wonderful and strange way — I forgot my phone at home. Wonderful, maybe not at first, but it feels like that now since I’ve been travelling to my shoot for an hour-and-a-half and I feel quite pleasant. I’m listening to a lovely song, I don’t know why I love you, by the super duper Stevie Wonder as I drive around an impatient mass of human cargo. All this free time on my phone-free hands has really got me thinking. There is no greater feeling and I mean nothing amazing as knowing why you truly love someone or something.
It brings me to those age old questions:
· Is what you want really what you need?
· Have you fought long and hard for an idea that was never yours in the first place?
· Did that love find its way to you when you weren’t waiting with unbound anticipation?
My concept of love have has changed dramatically over the years. A feeling I thought I loved no longer a feeling at all, a face I loved now just a distant photograph in my memory... I fell madly in love when I was 7 — with the lights, the sound and that feeling of being content — singing a tune for the first time, like it was all mine.
The second time around I thought I had found that harmony within a person, but the boy was particularly dissonant! But, you live and you learn. What is love today? It’s always the case that the one thing you love has this superhero ability to drive you crazy with the same feverish passion. Today, I’m taking time to think of why I love what I do. That crazy love makes me stay up all night and wait for that sweet buzz of the rolling camera. It’s an intense connection that makes me want to sing like there’s no tomorrow, whether I’m happy or sad.
We often take love we have for our family for granted and we are relieved that it’s always there. My soulmates are my beautiful friends who know me in a way in which I sometimes forget to see myself. Friends who send you a simple text in the morning that turns your day around, that’s the kind of love we all need. The greatest love you’ll ever have is for yourself. Of course, I don’t look at my reflection and say “I know why I love you” for that would be plain old loony!
{{/usCountry}}We often take love we have for our family for granted and we are relieved that it’s always there. My soulmates are my beautiful friends who know me in a way in which I sometimes forget to see myself. Friends who send you a simple text in the morning that turns your day around, that’s the kind of love we all need. The greatest love you’ll ever have is for yourself. Of course, I don’t look at my reflection and say “I know why I love you” for that would be plain old loony!
{{/usCountry}}The love I don’t need in my life is saving up and spending reserves of my love on people who don’t need or deserve it, the love I waste on people who had forgotten its value, the time I wasted counting calories instead of loving them for what they really are - delicious.
No one needs a love that’s draining, not giving.
No one needs a love that’s always heavy, never light, and easy when it needs to be.
No one needs a love judgemental or totally mental.
So the next time you say “I don’t know why I love,” either you find the answers or you look for a big fat exit door :) Adios amigos!
Read more Shruti Hassan columns