With Valentine’s Day around the corner and people going all mushy, with dealers in romance bracing for a kill, I was wondering if love isn’t overrated. I can almost see the hackles of die-hard romantics rise, but I do think that love is a glue that God uses to make us help Him run this world.

For instance, the eulogized love between man and woman is the frill, the fancy trapping, a thin veneer for lust. Lust – the powerful, all consuming passion for the opposite sex – is for the propagation of the species.
The sacrosanct maternal love, I agree, is beyond reproach, but again a means to an end. Without this sort of unconditional love, no human would toil relentlessly over helpless infants until they learn to fend for themselves –a ruse God uses to preserve the species.

On the other hand, the love of a child for his mother is directly proportionate to his need of her. The more independent he gets, the more redundant she becomes till there comes a day when she bids him adieu with a smile on her lip and a tear in her eye. As for love between siblings, it flies out of the window when there is a clash of wills over a will that goes on for years, much to the glee of their lawyers.

Mind you dear friends, I am not a cynic. There was a time when I was as addicted to love as any teenager flush with the first rush of hormones. It gave me such a high that I felt I could touch the sky. The waxing of love was indeed wonderful, the plateau good, but the waning came with unbearable withdrawal symptoms – scalding tears and piercing pain as if jagged rocks were impacted in my heart. I’d writhe and moan, keen and cry when my loved one outgrew me and found another love. Yet the foolish heart knew no better than to fall in love again, a cycle that was repeated throughout my reproductive years.

Now, thankfully, all is quiet on that front. Once again, I realized that it was but a play of hormones, oxytocin, endorphins, sex hormones – call them what you may. Maybe the doctor in me makes it sound so clinical, but the writer/poet deep within has felt each ecstatic/excruciating moment with acuity and has no regrets.

Go ahead, you young hearts, look for your true love. A word of caution though:
If you love be prepared for loss
For both are two sides of the same coin.
As for me, I have finally found a love that will last me a lifetime – my grandchild. God bless him and you all.