The inspiration behind this article comes from the show “Welcome to Samdali.” In this story, the father of the male lead is unable to move on from the death of his wife and blames the mother of the female lead for her death. As he is still unable to move forward from the memories of his wife, he tries to separate the leads by justifying that his wife would not have agreed to such a union. This is a brief and skimmed-through storyline speaking directly from the father’s perspective. As we enter the forever-loving stage of St. Valentine I thought about what could instigate a never-ending love like that one.
Love was never described as easy, and in many situations, love is more complicated to understand than hatred. Love is a spectrum with multiple colours and shades. Love varies from right to wrong while walking the line between sanity and insanity. The feeling of love is often romanticised, but the question is: Why do we romanticise finding the right person?
Finding the right person may require some of us to walk past many ‘wrong’ persons. The perfect lover may be found while looking in the wrong direction. Some would say that to love someone is to love the relationship that one has built over time. Others would say that love comes as a habit, an addiction, something that no one can actually live without.
After all, there are multiple studies, Mercuri et al. (2019) and Berecz et al. (2020), demonstrating the importance of parents’ or guardians’ physical contact during infancy. These studies all come with the understanding that children, when given the appropriate physical and emotional contact by their parents or guardians, have more consistent emotional controls and acquire better cognitive abilities. Therefore, our need for touch and intimacy is a primitive need for survival.
As a result, to generate love and affection, we tend to become people-pleasers, gift-givers, and caretakers, mostly because we believe that doing everything to make others happy will make them love us more. After all this is the typical romanticised behaviour we can observe on our social media feeds filled with these forms of ‘affection’ on the 14th of February.
From children and adolescents to adults, we will see pictures and videos of love being expressed in multiple forms. From spouses buying flowers or chocolate to going on dates with your lover to giving surprise gifts to your partner, Valentine's Day is essentially the best day of the year for serving love on a pink platter.
So, why do we need the never-ending love?
If you ask me, we need it for stability. The sense of knowing that someone will always be by our side without withering away makes us feel safe. It is a comfort zone that everybody looks for and the belief that everyone has their own person out there makes us hopeful for more. That is why when a person cheats on their partner, there is this fear of injustice and this sense of instability. The need for a forever lover is similar to the pursuit of happiness, we will always be running towards something we have no control over, and yet the idea that one day we can reach said goal makes us try harder.
Going back to the story from above, the father seeks justice through hatred. Hatred makes him stay stuck in the past and into his memories while everyone around him is moving on with their loved ones’ support.
Therefore, I wrote this poem from my perspective of this situation.
To Our Never Ending Love
“I don’t want you in pain.
Imagine how miserable you must be to wish pain to others.
If you could one day tell me why did we end like this,
Why does the sound of the waves make me seasick?
Did you know the scars you left are still opening?
My bones are shattering just as I sing.
I don't want to be miserable.
I don’t want you in pain either.
Imagine us once dancing in a symphony.
I can only wish for you to find your peace.
May your dreams no matter how big reach it utopia.
A new world where all you feel is euphoria.
I want you to one day find a happy ending.
A forever afterlife that makes you feel like breathing.”
written by Eugénie Baungaléa