Is love blind?

The times found you trying, working hard to forget. A storm rages within, it consumes all that you are. Battered, you struggle to regain a firm grip on your sanity. Weakened, your defenses are penetrated. Given that you are familiar with the impossible task that lies ahead, you allow yourself to be overtaken, washed over by the cold waters of unfamiliarity. Fact-New experiences are waiting for you in the days of your tomorrow. All you have to do is hold on. So you do, as if your survival depends upon it. Fighting to surface in the difficult waters of hardship and newness, you dig deep into yourself to that place where hope still insists. You take perseverance by the hand, hoping to retrace the worn path of your experiences. Looking to piece together yourself, you go back into yourself, hoping the tall overgrowth of your present has not overtaken your past. As if damned, you are overwhelmed; it is unrelenting in its attack. Insistently, it loosens your grip on perseverance, sending you plunging into the darkness of hopelessness. You are fully submerged, drowning in the depths of love. At least that is what it seems like to you. No one warned you of this.

Your mind scrambles to find answers, consequently finding temporary relief in the fog of errant thoughts. Sidetracked for a moment you allow yourself to wander with your thoughts. Strung together, with you holding on, they lead you to a place where you blank out. At least that is what you hope for. Your are disoriented and dizzy, you struggle to recover your footing on the chaos and craziness you call your life. From the back of your mind, hope flashes. You are all alone drifting aimlessly into impossibility. No one can possibly relate to how you are feeling. Ironically, for the first time in your life, you feel like you belong to the human race. You feel complete now, at last you are experiencing the rite of passage people always talk about, the indescribable force upon which our humanity is anchored. You are a human being.

When you fall in love, it should be normal-the words ring, reverberating against the halls of your memory. But what you are feeling is different. Far from normal is the way you would choose to describe it. But the world is too busy to care about your feelings. Maybe sleeping will take care of it. So you sleep, more hours than usual. Maybe it is just something temporary. This too shall pass. Masked in the disguise of your best interest, doubt creeps into your life. Riding a cloud of urgency, with its sweet tongue it whispers control into your mind.

Love is a risk, too big of a risk for you to take. How do you know she is the right person for you? Six billion people and you choose her. Are you sure she is the one for you?

It is a risk, a big one nonetheless, but one that might prove to be rewarding, if you are brave enough. Yes it might not work, but if it does happiness will be yours forever. For most things in your life, you usually fall behind reason and allow it to navigate the darkness of things you do not understand. But this is something different. All you want to do is give up and allow your mind to take up an insignificant role. You can’t believe you trust your heart to lead you. Reason, Reason, Reason. The words, by this time are distant echoes in your mind, drowned by the excited rhythms of your heart. Relief is what your soul craves. Like an addict, the only thing that relieves your desires, is being around the person responsible for your feelings. Just one look into their eyes, and you feel normal, satisfied. It is as if their eyes reach into your soul and turn down the torment and distress. So you run. So you look deep into their eyes. The drum beat of reason is sounded again. You want to heed its call, But you are under the spell of something powerful, of something different, something whose seductive drums have you dancing to a music you never knew existed.

That is why, the first time it happens, it catches you by surprise. You notice yourself becoming conscious of what is transpiring around you. Under the weight of a thousand pairs of eyes, you struggle to hold on. They whisper to you. Nothing has to be said, the eyes tell the whole story. Intense, they burn a feeling of guilt into you. Like you have done something, something terrible.

Love is blind, they always say. The eyes tell a different story though. At first you dive into denial, reluctant to accept the truth. They can’t be all watching me because I am black and she is white. But the eyes continue to trail you, lashing you for the wrong you have committed. You are upset at yourself, because they have undress your mind, forced their thoughts on you. You feel violated. Your innocence is gone, torn away from you by thoughtlessness. You begin to see it too. Blinded by the shock of your experience, your mind has been taught to see again. Except this time it sees color. You hate yourself, because you are like them now.

Love is not blind; it has sight and sees color and is predisposed to the color of the skin of our kind.

You don’t want to believe it, but the eyes. They are everywhere. They burn into you, making you uncomfortable. You move around, reposition your self multiple times. Maybe if you look too, the eyes would go away. The pain and seriousness in your eyes is enough to temporarily chase them away, but when you are not looking, you could still feel them all over your body.

Love will lead the way, you repeat to yourself. It keeps you afloat in the sea of desperation and surrender. With all your might you hold on to it. You don’t really want to believe it, but it is the only hope of surviving you have.

You may never be this privileged again. So you hold on. Even when things get worse- You hold on. When the parents raise questions you know have more depths than they declare-you hold on. Your religion becomes important. You hold on.

She cries because she feels she is loosing you. You hold on. You cry because she is your sanity. Without her, you feel alone. You talk less and less. Her parents monitor the phones. She only talks to you when they are in bed. You hold on. It is difficult for you, but you whisper with her on the phone. She loves you, it is apparent. Even her whispers, wrap around you the reassurance you need.

For months you hold on. You have to, because you are for both of you. She is not as strong as you, but that is one of the things you adore about her. She makes you feel important, needed, like you matter. You start to wonder, how much more of the pain she can handle.

For her sake, you call her. With tears pouring down your face, words become like steel, heavy. But you squeeze the words out, stuttering they limp into the phone. She can tell you are crying. You cry because you know you are letting go the only chance you ever had at true love. She is your soul. It feels like dying. At the end you both cry. She does not want to hang up the phone. You hold on. Until you fall asleep, you hold on.

Days later, she calls because she misses you. You want to pick up because you need her voice to take away the pain you are feeling. But you don’t pick up the phone, because you know her life will be better off. Even if it is not with you, you want her to be happy, to have a stress free life. You miss her so much. Even years latter, your soul still hungers for her.

Maybe telling the story might help someone else, so you tell it. As if telling it will bring her back, you tell it again and again.

Love is only blind when it is platonic, you say. Love is only blind when it does not deal with our family members- you continue. It is far too common today for parents and grandparents to dismiss interracial love as simply growing mistakes. You watch to make sure your topic is not offending anyone. You have made up your mind, even if it does, you don’t care. Your story needs to be told. As if telling it will bring her back, you continue.

However, in the event that said growing pains changes into what can be interpreted as true love, people cringe as if the sight is inherently painful. As you speak, you feel the pain inside of you. It comes out with the words. In fact they are coated with it, you are afraid people will notice. You gather yourself; wash away any visible marks of pain. You continue.

Dating outside of one’s race is acceptable only if marriage is not a possibility. Marriage, you wonder how she would have been as a mother. You continue. Loving unconditionally outside of one’s race is an admired characteristic only when it is not impaired by romance. We have somehow convinced ourselves of the fact that caring for someone outside our race is acceptable only when that benevolence is not hatched from the seed of romance. So quickly are we willing to take our position under the banner of love, but equally as fast to scramble to the safe corners of our race and cultures when that love strays into something taboo.

Love needs care and attention. Subsequently, the effort that one puts in inevitably determines the results. With that said, if family members decide that a particular love is unworthy, certain strains are by virtue introduced that will inevitably suffocate. Family members have the power to help love grow or to destroy it. Love takes on the characteristic of the hearts of those who surround it. If family member’s whish the love defunct, it takes a Herculean effort to save it. . Without the full blessings and support of family members, love takes on a deformity that becomes mortal under the most normal circumstances. Although love can be sustained by the devotion of the two primary characters, it can be enriched by the involvement and blessing of family members.