Steep price of love

It seems to me that the heart can get quite loud sometimes, particularly when it senses a strong feeling of unease, and wants to end certain relationships for our own benefit. I’m not talking only about romantic relationships; our lives are full of different people: friends, co-workers, relatives, parents and, of course, a partner, fiancée or husband, because love can get messy and can show us many different faces sometimes. I’m pondering, whether we know how to listen to our heart, and not just when it’s beating at a normal pace, but also when it starts to speak up, using subtle expressions to persuade us and then finally give us a wakeup call. A heartache can kill and that’s not only a myth, because we can read stories about relationships that ended tragically and those that can leave tangible consequences every day. Physical consequences. Emotional ones. Deep wounds in our heart that even time cannot heal. Love leaves a mark like no other thing in the world, so I think it’s reasonable to turn on the brain and mind every now and then, they can certainly protect the heart in a way we’re not able to.

Photo & make-up Biljana Babic

I recently read a book called “The Mysterious Language of Symptoms” by Marco Pacori. In it, he describes in a very clear manner, how our body manifests symptoms of weakness, unease, fear on a physical level. In short, when things get too complicated inside the mind, the body starts a revolution, which doctors usually dismiss by calling it stress or flu, but it’s actually much more serious and deep, and it’s happening in the heart. Love finds itself on this incredibly interesting and rather complicated carousel of emotions: there can be a thousand and one threads describing our relationship with another person and making sure that we don’t feel self-sufficient. Perhaps that is the starting point and mistake we often make: we put our personal happiness in the hands of another and refuse to accept the fact that it’s actually in our own hands. It’s satisfying to read about everlasting relationships with the better halves out there in the world, and even more satisfying to know that love can be infinite, but unfortunately we often just switch tracks while the train continues on its way far, far from the beginning.

Photo & make-up Biljana Babic

Photo & make-up Biljana Babic

It has been proven that acute states of sadness, either because of a death or a love that ended, are linked to strokes. The problem is that we are not proficient observers and often confuse a fatal attraction for true love. “I feel like women always want to feel butterflies in their stomach”, a friend of mine said the other day and I had no choice but to agree completely. I think an even bigger problem is the fact that we are able to somehow keep the butterflies within and prevent them from flying to another planet to soothe feelings of concern, because they’re usually related to the future instead of the here and now. It seems to me that we stick our nose around the corner too often, trying to find out what is hidden in the next alley no matter the cost, but it just isn’t meant to be. The risk, my ladies, that is what confuses us most. And the truth about ourselves usually breaks the surface of our inner ocean like a wild beast, which we refuse to accept. And yet there are two sides to every person, the light and the dark, the sun and the moon, yin and yang ‒ and that is the only way to stay balanced.

Photo & make-up Biljana Babic

I started writing this piece because I was hurt by tragedies of love and I know that there are many among us, who have found ourselves countless times in the middle of a crossroads that looks like the wildest American desert. When you look to your right, left, front and back, you get the feeling that all the roads are exactly the same, and there are no signs telling you where to go. So we have two options: to stay in the same place forever or to try to dismiss the importance of our environment and the people, delve into our heart and start listening. The author of the book says that the heart functions similar as the mind. It registers everything, remembers everything, so we shouldn’t be surprised that it can come to a halt. When the pain gets too overwhelming to handle, stress hormones rush in and damage it badly, like a ferocious wave in the middle of the winter sea. Unmanageable emotions speak about anger, resentment and uncontrollable situations, but there is a long road that leads to this place, and there are warning signs along the way. What I’m trying to say is, it’s good to stop and see the signs, give them true meaning and refuse to let your life run a course that isn’t your own. The mere fact that we expect anything from anybody, is completely wrong.

Photo & make-up Biljana Babic

However we end in our lives, it’s always painful, but losing ourselves is even more so.