Love that hurts

"Ring, Ring, Ring", Victor woke up immediately and it is 5:20am. Today is Valentine's day and it is the time that he has an phone call with his girlfriend. Turned on the Skype and cleaned his throat, he expects a happy conversation with her since they have not talked for almost two days. As expected, she is there. "How wonderful!" he said with his blood pressure going up and his eyes widely open.

"Happy Valentine's day!", her girlfriend greets him with a big smile. All of sudden, Victor is reminded that not only cannot he be together with her tonight but what's worst, her busy class schedule and the stupid time zone problem prevents them having a phone call the whole day. Consequentially his blood pressure goes down and happy emotions fades away. As the conversation goes, Victor learns that her study is very heavy and she probably needs to continue to finish her assignment after the phone call. Sympathy mingled with complaint, two equally strong emotional forces are torturing him intensely. Feeling sympathetic is because she is bearing a lot of pressure from her class and he can not help at all; feeling complaining is because he feels that their quality time is constrained again in a time frame. He wants to be with her the whole time, not a portion of her time. He wants to let her enjoy the conversation with him to the point that she feels time doesn't matter. 

However, the Creator gave him a  very special girl. Not only is she as logical and rational as a stereotyped man would be, but also does she enjoy learning. This character trait is one of her many beauties which attracts Victor at the first place because she is so different from other girls. However, at this moment, he only wishes that it would be wonderful if she didn't think so rationally and if she could forget time and responsibilities and could think emotionally.  At the end of the conversation, Victor tries to persuade her to escape one session of her classes so that she could come back earlier to have a phone call date. She replies that Valentine's day is not very significant and she didn't feel comfortable about escaping a class just for this day. Then the conversation ends. She looks very tired and his heart  is almost as cold as the air outside the window.  No wonder so many Victor's friends told him that this winter is especially cold. 

When Victor is taking a shower, he feels confused. He loves her, cares her and tries really hard to spend time with her because many relational books say that girls need her companion be a good listener. At the same time, she loves him, cares him and works very diligently to find as much time as she cold afford  to communicate with him.  But why did the conversation end up with feeling dissatisfied for both of them. "Love, it hurts", Victor signs, "why do we feel hurt when we love each other so much? When I am not talking to her, my mind fills with her image and want to talk to her so badly to the extend that I feel hurt; when I am having delicious dinner without her, I feel guilt that she can not enjoy the meal with me; when I am talking with her, my heart can easily get agitated because of my unspoken expectations on her; when I find we have not communicated for two or three days, I complain about her absence; when I notice we only have a limited time to talk, I feel constrained and still complain when I can talk to her with no time limitations. "   

When Victory dried himself, his heart was so heavy because he knew that his love make her tired. The conversation this morning neither bring any enjoyment to her nor any alleviation to her pressure from schooling. What's frightening is that Victor notices that he becomes a complainer and can easily get angry over a small thing. She is living under fear and she spends more effort coaxing him from angry than enjoying his company.

"Love, it hurts not only me, but also her." Victor signs again. "What is the way-out?" he starts to ask himself this question, "what am I doing wrong? Should I keep the love from intensifying itself? Can only the lukewarm love last?"  

It says, "LOVE is patient and kind; LOVE is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. LOVE does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. LOVE bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. LOVE never ends …"  As Victory recites these verses, they opens his heart like a sun shine is finally shinning through the thick dark cloud. "I am loving her with my own ways.  My love to her causes resentment and bitterness in my heart. This love needs to be changed. Or it will end."

How happy is Victor after he got this new revelation. This is the second Valentine's day he is alone by himself since he has her. But this year he does not feel lonely at all.  Even though he knows that she is not persuaded by him to escape the last session of her class today and he knows he will not be able to talk to her today, maybe she is right about that Valentine's day. It is just a normal day. 

When Victor starts his day of work, he says to himself that he will learn to love her with her ways, and he will try not to put any selfish expectations on her any more. Outside the porch, the sun appears. He feels warm again.