Side Effects of Love

We’ve heard that phrase that goes like, ‘love is a drug, do too much of it and it kills you,’ haven’t we? 

We have been warned about it and yet we go all in wanting to fall in love. If you search about it, synonyms for love will correspond to passion, adoration, care, home, and ecstasy. Is ecstasy all that love has to offer? I don’t think so.

I have seen, heard, and felt relationships fall apart. It’s world-crushing. Your entire fantasy falls apart. You’ve seen love stories, heard love songs, and felt ‘love in the air, you have felt the emotion that overcomes you when your loved one smiles because of you. I promise, no other feeling in this world can overpower that one. But is it all that love has to offer?

No. It is all that you know love has to offer. It is all your wisdom about love. It is not everybody’s story. Hence, I found a few side effects of loving.

Alright, now I want you to imagine the person you love. And no, I do not mean your parents or family because that is a different type of love. That is the type of love where you are dedicated from within. I am talking about that person that made you feel butterflies, made you steal glances at them, and you wrote about them in your slam book.

Now, I want you to look back and tell me, how it felt like at that moment when you realized, ‘dang, I love them.’ It was an adrenaline rush, you wanted to tell the whole world, you wanted to fill your room with their pictures, and you couldn’t wait to hold their hand one day. Am I right? I am sure you’re reminiscing about that moment.

What if I tell you that they are not the easiest choice for you? By that I mean, that with them, life will be difficult, tougher, and tedious. There will be moments where you would want to give up, and then there will be moments where you have to take a step back in order to maintain that relationship. Would you still want that person to hold your hand? If you truly loved them, your answer is yes.

You would always choose them over anything, they would be your first choice in everything, in fact, there would be no options when it comes to this person. Know why? Because they made you feel the aliveness you once forgot about. You gave yourself to them to such an extent that they are now part of your daily routine.

Looking at life from a third-person perspective, without them in your life, it will always feel like an incomplete mess. You become dependent. That is the first side effect of love. You become dependent on them in terms of your emotions, your heart, and your life as a whole. Your love is like how a golden retriever loves.

You will need them to vent your emotions and if they are not emotionally available to listen to your problems, then you have no idea as to how you are going to deal with those emotions. You will need them to be just as excited as you are about something, and if they aren’t, you tell yourself that maybe that thing wasn’t really something to be excited about. You often find yourself reasoning out of situations.

That brings us to the second side effect of love. Questions. Events after events, questions above questions, and confusions in confusions. Clarity breaks up with the situation, you fail to see a clear road ahead, and clouds of questions fog your mind. Questions like, am I enough? Do they still love me? Are they able to grow with me? Are we the right decision? And so on.

This starts seeming like the last question, and after questions comes the next stage. The third side of effect. Hope worlds. You are in a hope world. You convince yourself that this is what is right for you because there is fear. Fear of losing them. Fear of abandonment. But then, magic happens.

They hold your hand, guide you through the fog, walk with you through the questions, and build a hopeful world for you. This is where you feel, ‘they were indeed the right decision.’

People don’t tell you the dark sides of love because they coat it with honey, but I want to show you ‘love’ from all its sides. It is not all rainbows and sunshine, but it is not thunderstorms all the way as well. I’d say that the first feeling of wanting to protect them, adapting to their warmth, associating their scent with yours, and seeing yourself in their eyes, such a sentiment of reverie is what love is. Here, you start believing in hope worlds.

I want you to close your eyes and imagine them by your side, holding your hand and smiling at you while diving deep into your eyes. Tell me what you saw, describe it to me. Once you do, look back at the answer you replied with. You will find every word of it looking at you, blushing. Am I right?

This is the last side effect of love. Addiction. Obsession. Fetish. They become your weakness. They become your greatest strength. Among a million things that love teaches you, it stresses authenticity.

That’s why you’ve heard the saying, ‘love is what makes the ride worthwhile.’ It’s all worth it. Love is not butterflies, love is when you’re mentally and physically relaxed around them. I’ll tell you what those butterflies are. Scientifically proven, butterflies are your nervous system preparing for flight or fight, it’s what adrenaline does. You don’t want to feel anxious and nervous around the person you ‘love’, because love is not supposed to make you be on your toes.

Love is supposed to be so relaxing that you could fall asleep in their arms. You should be able to look them in the eyes and find a home. Like a synonym for euphoria. 

That's what the aftermath of love should look like.