Philophobia – The Fear of Love
Today, somebody told you he loves you and scared of love, you tell him you don’t. You think Love is weird. On days like these, when you have to contemplate on love and life, you are reminded of your mother’s hospital days. Those days when you kept shuttling between home and hospital, feeling guilty about the once in a while timely meal and occasional smiles to assure people you are fine, those days you were ridiculed even for the pace of your walk, those days you felt so suffocated and scared that you had to dial up somebody in the dead of the night and cry, asking just to listen. You kept telling yourself that everything is gonna be better but you yourself knew there was no way you would win over love, no matter how hard you try.
For every single thing you went through the excuse was love – love for a daughter, love for a sibling, love for a wife and amidst all this ‘love for mother’ was completely ignored and thrown down the drain. Everybody was too busy loving, too occupied with the notion of love, they conveniently forgot everything except theirs. And you learn, “Love is selfish, there is no way you could outshine ‘love’ with love and the only way is to give up and being understanding“, sighing -“Ah . They just love her”. So you stuff all your hard feelings under that long table in your bedroom and wait for the day, when your mother gets back and you could finally whine and complain to your heart’s content.
But nothing much change. You are again defeated by other definitions of love – the love she have for her parents, siblings, husbands, in- laws , the love she have for you, the guilt she has for burdening you when you never once thought it was a burden and you give up again in the name of love you have for her. You know you yourself are not perfect and that you have no right to ask them to give up their fair share of love and you get pissed and hurt when she asks you to cater to other people’s insecurities. You realise you still want to be treated a child and that you wanted your feelings to be prioritised just because you are years younger than all those adults. Just like how seniority gives them the say in what is right or wrong, you wish to be given your right to tantrums. But you fail, stuck between being a kid and an adult.
So you tell yourself, Love is weird, love is strange and that you will be better loving yourself than bringing somebody in vague hope of being loved. You trap yourself in the duality of love in fear that someday, just like those days, you will have to give up again on the name of love. So here you are, confused, falling apart, trying to tear down the wall of insecurities and find something less scary than love or may be a different kind of love.
