The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. For years I have been pushing this feeling away and replacing it with stronger emotions which I feel are more powerful than love. Like the feeling of not having to love. I have thought of love as a feeling for the weak. It makes me vulnerable. Like in the movies, cliched and sappy love stories would make some cry and at times they can even relate to that feeling. I never envied having that experience and I never really wanted to experience it in the first place. But after reading the book, I realized that I was simply afraid. I was afraid of being vulnerable and thoroughly succumbing to the feeling of love.
The giddiness that a girl would feel for having a lover, someone to watch over her and protect her. The openness of how a mother would caress her daughter with thoughts of being the luckiest mother as they share giggles about boys and teenage life. A once-in-a-blue-moon closeness of a father and his daughter as they share a banana split and talk about politics. Having friends and sharing dozens of smiles and laughter with them as you tell the corniest of all jokes. The unending love of a family, the foundation you grew up, with your siblings as your first classmates and your parents as your first teachers. These are what I felt with love. But I was never sure that through these experiences did I really feel it. Just when I thought I've got everything, something's still missing. I did not fully express what I felt. This was simply a fleeting moment and I never relished the fact that love actually is happening and its right in front of me, wooing my every smile and every heart-fluttering moment. I admire Morrie for being able convey his emotions and not feel weak about it. I definitely related to Mitch for being so oblivious to the truth and hiding from reality. I hid myself carefully by being engrossed with work or with any possible excuse I could muster. But now I realize that all those times I spent, trying to hide my emotions and pretending to be strong, became useless.
"Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live." Pain and suffering comes as a package with death. Maybe the reason why I didn't want to feel love or give it in return was because I was also afraid of getting hurt and feel pain. I always believed that with love, comes pain. But after reevaluating myself and taking into consideration Morrie's words, with love comes pain and compromise. Change is the only thing permanent in life. And every thing goes to a cycle of rebirth to death.