“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. [He did ask for it.] They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love. [Double-strike, please.]” — Neil Gaiman

Love makes you cry as hard as it makes you laugh, fall as low as it makes you leap high, and wallow as much as it makes you sing and float on cloud nine. Love is extreme like that. One can love extremely and wisely; they are not mutually exclusive.

But one cannot love moderately. Moderate love is not love; moderate is lukewarm, sterile, and bland. Moderate love is not love with wisdom; or is it? Moderate love does not inspire, motivate, make you leap for joy, or cry buckets for hours. It is like having a job on a need-it-to-survive basis, where you work just so you can satisfy your wants and pass the days.

Love extremely, wildly, passionately, I say, or don't love at all. Such love is not the same as childish impulses where 'only the moment matter'--those are short-sighted, silly, and frivolous. Love deeply, not drunkenly.

Get the drift yet? Deep love is not drunken. It is not fraught with insecurities and fears. Nor burdened with pride.

No wonder "happiness is an uphill climb".

I really hope we'll be triumphant, victorious, and wiser, together, at the summit, hand-in-hand, smiling at the breathtaking wonders of God's hands.