I Stopped Searching for You, but I Didn’t Stop Loving You!
I've stopped looking for you, but I haven't stopped loving you. The one person we can't forget. Love has many faces and, beyond all romantic clichés, means something completely different to each person. We all search for it, desperately wish for it, and with every new acquaintance cherish a spark of hope that he or she could now be the one person for us. We lie to ourselves, bend the facts until they fit our imagination and accept a lot of suffering and compromise. Many people live only an illusion of love. They talk themselves into believing that they are in love, but somewhere in their heart there is someone from the distant past who once gave them soft knees and butterflies in their stomach. Lost love, which we can never forget, is only one of many varieties of the most beautiful emotion in the world. Nevertheless, it deserves a special status and herewith also a brief closer look.
1. Out of sight, out of mind?
Maybe she or he was just a hot vacation flirt we had to leave behind on an exotic island or a lonely beach years ago. Maybe our days together were numbered from the start, or circumstances made it clear to us that this love had an expiration date. It may be that one half or both were committed or just reached a point in life where love could not be given top priority. For some people, all it takes is a brief flirtation on a balmy summer evening, intense eye contact with a stranger, or the kind smile of someone who crosses our path only fleetingly. Some encounters actually have what it takes to remain in our minds for good. These tingling and intense interludes don't even need more to make a lasting impression on us. Here, a form of contact has taken place that words would never bring about. Short moments can change our lives, make a lasting deep impression on us and change our view of love forever. Those who have lost contact with a person, but they’re still not out of mind, not to mention still in our hearts, will never again disregard love or consider it impossible. Because what other power on earth would have the gift to trigger feelings in us within such a short period of time that will captivate us forever?
2. The mystery triumphs.
In the age of social media and search engines, it would probably be child's play, for example, to track down the vacation sweetheart from the year before last. In the past, we still had to guard our phone number like the apple of our eye; today, Google, Facebook and Co. would solve the problem of making contact for us in a split second. The question we should be asking ourselves much more is: should we really take away the magic of memory? Nostalgia is always an important ingredient when it comes to a love gone by. The reliable friend from childhood, the girl from college, the beautiful stranger from the train or the smart woman at the supermarket checkout - we can't get them all out of our minds because those few brief moments were so precious and intense that they still take our breath away. Trying to track them down can therefore almost only end in disappointment. We met these people at a moment in their lives when they were someone else, but in fact we only felt them. The man on the train certainly enjoyed the flirtation, the girl from university days may still think of us, yet their lives have moved on. They are no longer the same people they were then, and neither are we. This love was and is like a snapshot, probably that's why it won't let us go, because a moment can remain perfect for weeks, months and years. The idea of doing everything right and nothing wrong for one summer love or flirtation is not an impossibility, but everyday life would certainly look very different. Every person lives in his or her own little world. The probability that today, a long time later, we would find our way there without any problems and vice versa is very low. A love that does not want to leave our minds and still holds a fixed place in our hearts should be kept right there and cherished. Its magic lies in the mystery, not in the actual.
3. Is it cheating to think of her?
A question that many people ask themselves who carry such a soul love in their heart is: am I actually cheating on my partner with this person? After all, I am very often with her in my thoughts and also my feelings still speak a very clear language. Maybe sometimes we even regret the current relationship because it just can't hold a candle to the lost one. Of course it can't, our current partnership is real and has to exist in everyday life. It is reality, the other is memory, and probably by now we are also transfiguring it and elevating it to a pedestal that is unattainable for any real human being. Some great stories in world literature revolve around such involuntary love triangles. A deceased or lost love from the past makes the current one unbearable and the new partner is constantly fighting an overpowering demon. If an illusion of love is constantly draining energy from a real one, this mode of action is certainly the wrong one. It is most unfair especially to the current partners to have to fight constantly against our secret imaginings. If the powerful omnipresence of a past love affects the relationship life in the here and now, action is certainly required. The question that should be asked immediately is: What do I want? Because this attitude is neither fair to the partnership nor to ourselves. A construct like this does not produce any winners. A triangular relationship with a phantom will make at least one person deadly unhappy and the third in the group, who could be the only beneficiary here, will never even know about it. So, to suggeset an answer to the question, which in reality only you can answer for yourself: As long as no one suffers and no harm is done, a relationship of three with the imaginary love of our lives is no problem. Thoughts are free - even within a partnership. However, if one half of the couple is obviously suffering from a constant emotional absence, this torpedoes any chance of happiness together.
Today’s Conclusion
How much past can the present bear? Honoring a love that has passed and been lost can be a beautiful thing. Experiences like these, which encourage us throughout our lives to believe in and appreciate love, can be a tremendous help in our everyday lives. However, if nostalgia takes over and we let the past become more important than the present, we can expect a crash landing. There is nothing to be said against a silent, loving memory in our hearts; such thoughts can be comforting when everyday life does not go our way. But if the shadows become overwhelming, they bury all the happiness we could have built up in real life.