One Love, Shared
“Chloe and I could both say that we were in love, but this love might have been very different things inside each of us. We would often read the same book in bed each night, and then realise that the books had touched us in different places: they were different books for each of us” (Alain de Botton).
I could not agree more with Alain on this point. A young man born in the countryside carries a deep feeling for nature that a city girl may find hard to feel to the same degree. Someone who has been through many upheavals may see every opportunity as coming from effort, while someone with a peaceful life may not understand why the other is so hard on themselves. Family background, environment and living conditions, personality, chance and choices take us to different “harbours”, shaping our own identity and making each of us a unique, whole person.
That is why Erich Fromm asserted that in love, two people become one and yet remain two. We are two people who have lived, and are living, two lives, while sharing a (relatively) long part of life together – there is no way to merge two lives into one. That is also why, however harmonious we are, we always find points of disagreement with our partner and must love even the things we don’t like about them. What matters is that both want to hold each other’s hand tightly – or more deeply, to hold tight to the place where two lives meet: by sheltering under one roof, reading the same book, listening to the same record, sharing meals, worrying about and solving together the countless problems that crop up every day, walking (many) stretches of road together… What else?! There must be countless more things we can do together with the one we love.
The poet Lưu Quang Vũ, who felt love in his own way – both deeply romantic and very down-to-earth – wrote these moving lines about days once separate becoming one shared life: a shared horizon, a shared page, a shared lamp and a window with rain falling:
“Những ngày của riêng anh những ngày của riêng em bây giờ chung một
Chung nhau chân trời chung nhau trang sách
Chung nhau một ngọn đèn và khung cửa mưa rơi”
A friend of mine told me she loves “tough” travel: trekking through forests, climbing passes, wading streams, camping outdoors and sleeping rough, but her husband didn’t, so in the past they could never plan this particular hobby together. Whenever she craved a trip, she would sling on her backpack and go alone, never forgetting to send photos and kisses home to her husband and children. Then one day he said that seeing her so happy, he wanted to give it a try. After joining her on his first “tough” trip, he was hooked. Step by small step, they chose to move towards each other. If she hadn’t sent countless messages sharing the joy of her trips, and if he hadn’t been determined to try it once, their love story might have taken a different turn.
What we need to create here, in this relationship, is a shared love – even if that love is “experienced” in two ways that are… not alike at all!
