I'm going to be honest with y'all here: nothing came to mind when I began writing an entry today. For about an hour I found myself looking at the screen, wondering what in the world I'd be typing. Add the fact that I needed to compose something consisting of over one thousand words and you'll have a dilemma: a writer who, at the current rate he's going for the day, won't make deadline.

Before I started this entire blog, I went through some of my old work - posts on past blogs I liked, old papers I wrote (of which only a few were actually for school), poems and scripts I composed over the years. Of these, I grabbed what I believed to be the cream of the crop and copied them into a folder that I labeled "In Case of Emergency" - only to be used when I've spent a considerable amount of time staring at the same screen because I honestly could not compose anything to slap on here.

From what I looked through in the archives, I've broken into this folder... ...well, if you count today, I think only twice now. Considering how today's post will be the 252^nd, I'd say that's pretty good non-usage of this emergency folder - it's only been used for a little under one percent of the time!

Anyway, as I looked through the "In Case of Emergency" folder, I found this little gem I wrote one fateful Halloween back in 2008. As most (if not all) of you know, back then I was... well, less optimistic and more emotional than I am now. Granted, I still have moments like that (we all do), but lately the only reasons I've regressed is because I was pushed to that point. I decided to post this document for three reasons:

1. It's inspirational. Some of my friends who've read this were touched by its words, so I decided, "Hey; let's throw it on the Internet! Maybe I'll affect someone else's life in a great way with today's entry!"
2. Let's face it: I'm a hopeless romantic, no matter how much I deny it tooth and nail. I was in the past, and I still am. It makes sense for someone like me to write this, and who am I to deny what I truly am?
3. It was the only document in the "In Case of Emergency" folder that went over 1,000 words. *nervous laugh*

Some of you might have already seen this (particularly anyone who's gone through my notes on Facebook), so apologies for making you read something you've already read. However, it is pretty nice (and somewhat sappy, I'll admit) and it does give off inspiration.

So, enjoy this ol' favorite of mine, and I'll see y'all tomorrow! Star Fox 64 3D, food and work await! *flies off*

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"Maybe Love Is…"

Josh D. "Whitey" Blanco
31 October 2008
(revised 02 Oct 2009)

When it comes to understanding love, it is something none of us will ever fully and truly reach alone. But if we share the love with each other - and should we find someone in particular to share its warmth with - we can get pretty damn close.

Before, I've made it no secret how much I loathe and pine for that poisonous quartet of letters. Longtime readers of my blogs will remember my (mostly) unenthusiastic opinions on love – that it was a vile and atrocious man-eater, making heroes out of stagnant liars and villains out of honest gentlemen. As a guy who is single and has never had a girlfriend (at least at the time of writing this), it seems hypocritical of me to even attempt to give the world some definition of this downright tricky four-letter-word. Yet here I am, doing it anyway as an attempt to find my heart reprieve in this maddening world that is 2009.

Truth be told, I don’t think anybody has even come close to finding a proper definition of love. Many have tried; many have failed - and today, the world is filled with numerous quotes about this seemingly simple word.


Now, I’m not claiming to be the go-to guy in this sort of matter, but maybe I can shed a little more light with these petite theories that might just get us closer to answering the infinitely-asked question, "What is love?"


Maybe love is finding someone to share a clear night sky with - someone to whisper their deepest wishes to instead of the distant stars, someone to confide the most heartfelt truths to in lieu of the moon, and someone to help sow one’s hopes across the heavens when a shooting star flies by.

Maybe love is being able to lie on the green grass, head empty of worry and soul fully at peace.

Maybe love is that dark void in your heart, longing to be filled with the compassion of another.

Maybe love is right in front of you and you don’t even know it.

Maybe love is that silver platter of an opportunity you've been too blind or prideful to take.

Maybe love doesn’t have to exist in the land of dreams… maybe it can be real.

Maybe love is connecting to a song that captures the romantic essence of your soul. Maybe that song is only for one singer and the song is meant to be sung to that special someone. Maybe it can be made into a duet that this distinct person can join you in. Maybe the song is romantic in the first place and its lyrics need no explanation. Maybe the piece is an instrumental whose home-hitting melody speaks to you wordlessly. Or maybe it’s just what your heart desperately wants to say to them when your mind is too stubborn and/or shy to admit the truth and when your lips fail to mutter anything coherent.

Maybe love can save someone’s life when mere words and actions can’t.

Maybe love is knowing "How to Save a Life" (and I don’t just mean the Fray song, either).

Maybe "Love Comes Again" - even to those that Tiësto and BT weren’t singing about.

Maybe love is that guilty pleasure of a romantic song you sing along with on a lone drive home.

Maybe love wants you to be like Journey and "Don’t Stop Believin'" in it.

Maybe love prioritizes quality over everything else. It doesn’t require the high-end, lavish luxuries that the flauntingly rich can pompously toss about. Such a complex emotion needs not a high-quality dinner from a five-star restaurant, a cruise down a long road in a silver convertible BMW and first class seating in a major game or performance. Maybe all it needed was an inexpensive trip to a local sushi bar, a serene stroll through the waterfront and a lot of meaningful conversation. (Then again, love knows no boundaries. There are honorable people who can afford extravagance on dates and those who cannot. To me, it matters not how much one invests on the outing with money, but rather how much one invests with their soul.)

Maybe love is that magical thing that makes all money worthless and one sweet smile priceless.

Maybe love is the Chekhov’s gun that ends the night with a soft, genuine, romantic midnight kiss.

Maybe love is (according to Dr. Perry Cox from Scrubs) "...mainly about pushing chocolate-covered candies and [...] in some cultures, a chicken."

Maybe love is when the nice guy - who, after an eternity of playing fair yet finishing last against the many cheaters in the race - finally places first.

Maybe love is that botched plan of a date that ends up being an amazing night to remember.

Maybe love is taking precedence of their feelings rather than your own. It can be as simple as granting space when needed and offering shade in the sweltering heat of stress, even when they fail to ask for it. It can be the act of remaining steadfast for them in the face of adversity, or being oneself, knowing that "those who mind don’t matter while those who matter don’t mind." It can also be an act of selflessness – being there to wipe the tears away, offering company and a reassuring hug and asking for nothing in return.

Maybe love is sacrificing your happiness so theirs may flourish, knowing full well that they may never thank you - and still being okay with it.

Maybe love is proof that chivalry isn’t dead.

Maybe love is that honorable hero(ine) we wish we were instead of the shadowed being we currently are.

Maybe love means taking the hit if you really care for someone, no matter what the outcome is.

Maybe love takes a bite even when the shine’s off the apple.

Maybe love takes form of all emotions, of all actions, of all words, of all people. While it is the prince of happiness, the messenger of euphoria and the gateway to Utopia, love is also the harbinger of vulnerability, the summoner of timidity and the door to any black hole in one’s heart. Its sheer power forces one to perform actions never intended to happen and bestows emotions that overwhelm the psyche. Love can provoke unnecessary aggression, impulsive behavior, bitter melancholia, troublesome contemplation, chaotic anxiety, sheer ignorance, abrupt speechlessness, fluttering elation and heart-sinking depression. And yet, while one can acknowledge the existence and aftermath of their actions and thoughts, they can never locate the source of its appearance, even though it is blatantly obvious what triggered it all.

Maybe love turns the confident into the shy, the prideful into the humble, and the apathetic into the caring.

Maybe love forces us to do both smart and stupid things. (Mostly stupid.)

Maybe love is silent - maybe it needs no words to be expressed.

Maybe love is saying "I love you" without the "I love you."

Maybe love is just looking deep in their eyes, saying nothing, and having the greatest conversation ever.

Maybe love hurts. "It gets inside you," Rose Walker from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman states. "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. 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." (But as Incubus sings: "Love hurts / But sometimes it’s a good hurt / And it feels like I’m alive / Love sings / When it transcends the bad things / Have a heart and try me / ‘cause without love I won’t survive.")

Maybe love forces you into staying up all night and getting caught up in your mind. In the morning, you claim the ordeal as mere insomnia... when you really know better.

Maybe love is that icy void - that vulnerable feeling in your heart that yearns to be filled.

Maybe love is dramatic irony incarnate - those involved are blind to it, and everyone else around them knows exactly how the play will finish. (Of course, they can be wrong, too.)

Maybe love is star-crossed. Then again, maybe it isn’t, either.

Maybe love is an example of a famed mathematical thought: chaos theory.

Maybe love is the ultimate paradigm of yin and yang. No other emotion can muster such a delicate equilibrium of duality. Love is serenity and pandemonium, reciprocation and rejection, subtlety and flamboyancy, pleasure and pain, bliss and misery, forbidden and accepted, harmony and discord, aspiration and despondency, intimidation and confidence, unity and separation. (The irony of it all is that understanding love is also a balancing act of clarity and ambiguity - one can comprehend its meaning but still be lost in its perplexing definition.)

Maybe love can’t be described at all.

Maybe love possesses no actual definition of its own - rather, love’s meaning is the very one held within our own hearts.

Maybe love is the act of you reading this, trying to use my words to formulate a definition to call your own.

Maybe love is what you make it to be. "To each their own" when it comes to happiness, so why not love?

Maybe "love" and "believe" are two words that go hand-in-hand.



Maybe love will someday come to me...