crazy things I did for love

"What's the craziest thing you've ever done for love that you didn't think you were capable of doing?"

Craziest?  For love?  That got me thinking... I was actually stumped. 

After finally submitting a cover story way beyond the deadline set for this magazine I love to write for, I am asked to submit a sentence or two in reply to this unsettling question for the contributors' page.  And I thought completing the cover story over the frenetic holidays was a challenge. I think: the article is for the February issue.  February, Valentine's, Love.  But, of course.

I stare at the email for so long, then log out.  In the car, at work, and over dinner, I would scroll down the text messages on my mobile phone to take another look at the same message sent via SMS.  Then I press options, exit, and put my phone down.  Those words haven't been strung together for the longest time to demand facing the past (because, real-life love has taken over) and unearthing things I might have seen as crazy but did anyway, blessed with love, romance, and passion.

Of course, what was crazy at one time is relative to when it happened, the situation that the love in question is in today, and the world one lives in. Crazy then, but would I think myself incapable of doing it now?

Panic put aside, I address this deliverable. I have a submission to make, like it or not, because such is what my professional life is made out of -- deadlines, deadlines, and even more deadlines.  So, wracking my brains out, going through the memory box in the farthest recesses of my mind, I come up with these at least publish-able craziest things I did for love:

I have compromised a non-negotiable I set even before meeting the particular loved one involved.  I thought I could never ever overlook or forgive what, for me, at least, was a transgression,  but I have. Crazy, crazy.

I gave up my NY dream. For 20 years. For now, but not for long. *fade in Alicia Keys' "Empire State of Mind" to fire up the dream*

I took the bus, cabs, the jeepney, & even tricycles with him. I stood waiting on bus lines and cab queues for hours.  

He didn't drive when we were dating, so we went almost everywhere via public transport. You'd know how bad it was if you were from Manila. At the start I didn't even notice, because I was in lurve.

We got married!  Then had three children in succession, and then another six years after the third.  Then decided to be a hands-on parent. Etc., etc., etc.

I wrote poems. Of love. We're both writers, but I was mostly a business writer, and he, an advertising copywriter.  He had all the romance and free flow of words. When I got the first poem, I didn't know how to react -- no one wrote me a poem before him.  Pretty soon, I was so into it, I actually composed one for him. I must have been possessed because I just never got the jive for writing poetry.

Nothing of the stuff that makes me sigh or tingle all over in a romantic dramedy or a really heavy novel about dropping everything that made sense in the name of love. Sometimes I wish my life had a bit more of that kind of spice. But, looking back, they were big steps I took then.  And here I am now.

What crazy thing did you do for love?