Does love hurt or is it being inlove?

I often hear the question, "Why love can't be simple?" or "Why love doesn't always have to be happy?". Many believe you cannot love without getting hurt. When you learn to love, you have to prepare yourself from all the sorrows that will come your way. They say hurt is the twin of love. Is that really it? 

Wondering, I separated my mind from my emotion, and tried to look at love in a different perspective. I asked what is love in the first place. It took me several minutes to answer my own question. Love is more than just a word. It is a static embodiment of something that is eternal. It cannot be broken as it is something that cannot hold by anyone. It resides in our inner core and has its own mind.  In personification, it is sharing your whole self that includes your mind, heart and soul to the person or people you want to be part of your life's journey here on earth. When I say your 'whole self', it means giving a big part of you without hesitation or inhibition. Thus, this also means giving without expecting anything in return. You give freely and then let go. 

Another question popped in my head, "What does being inlove means?" This question is a lot easier for me to answer because this always happens to me, and I allow it as it feels good. Being inlove is when you realized that the attraction you feel for the person goes a little further. It means a simple thought of him makes you smile and you allow your heart beats faster. It means you cannot sleep at night because he is capturing your mind, and yet you still have all the energy upon waking up in the morning. It means it makes you feel everything is changing in you - your smile, your voice, your thoughts, your ways, and you have no explanation why is that so. It means you found an inspiration and you don't want to let go...

The conflict there is, we always connote 'inlove' to the word 'love', when in fact the first word is 'just' a feeling of your being that will eventually fade away. The latter, on the other hand, is constant and eternal. The feelings will go, but the love will remain. Everything will pass away including the feelings and emotions, but the love will forever be constant. 

The hurt that we feel is not because of love; it is because we are being 'inlove'. We tend to become attach to the feeling as it makes us feel good and happy. We put lots of efforts for our feelings to get noticed. We show our own way of loving because that is how we want to be loved in return. And, because it is a feeling we cannot help but to have expectations such as we want it to be reciprocated because later on we know that it will slowly grow faint. We need it to be requited to sustain the feeling and to uphold the spellbinding emotions. Apparently, the longing to be love in return is in most cases often left ignored; that's when it hits us the hardest and give us heartaches. All of a sudden, the once magical feeling became an intense curse for us.   

I am not saying that when we are inlove we do not love. The truth is, when we are inlove is the moment that we give love the most. However, the involvement of feelings and emotions is what eventually gives us the feeling of 'being hurt'. Admiringly, others can sustain to love through pains and heartaches. It's a selfless act to set aside the crashing feeling because we need to show some love. This is love in its real essence.       

It is good to be inlove, but it is admirable to love. Love doesn't hurt. It is 'being inlove' that hurts.