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Worst Weakness

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My friend once described me in a lengthy post which ended with this line: “Greatest weakness and strength – Love.”

Oh boy. Is it ever.

One of the most painful moments of my life was when I first got my heart broken as a teen. He was my first love. I was so crazily, unhealthily in love with him that when he broke up with me, he broke me. I cried myself to sleep and woke up with tears still streaming down my face; I didn’t know that was even possible. It hurt so badly that I couldn’t eat anything for days. When I finally forced myself to ingest something, I could only take an apple – and an apple a day was all I had. I lost so much weight (2 inches off my waist in a week) that people started stopping me in hallways to say things like “You’re so thin!” “Drink milk.” “You looked better a week ago.” “Do you eat?” “You’ve been under a lot of stress, I can tell.”

Pathetic. Is that any way for a supposedly smart girl to act? Nope. If I had used my head, I wouldn’t have gone through all that, especially for a boy who wasn’t even that great a catch to begin with. But unfortunately, head doesn’t always win. Heart puts up quite a fight most of the time.

Now I know love is a many splendored thing and makes the world go round and all that. I like seeing people in love, as long as it is a healthy kind of love, the kind of love that makes people happier and be better persons. I am all for that.

There is the other side of the spectrum, however, the kind of love that make me cringe: The battered wife who can’t bear to leave her abusive husband. The woman who carries on an illicit affair with a married man even though everyone knows he is never going to leave his wife for her. The man who stops hanging out with his friends because of his extremely possessive and overly jealous girlfriend. The man who buys a ton of expensive gifts for a woman who is obviously just using him for his money. The woman who used to be Miss Independent until oooh, she fell in love. Then she suddenly can’t function without this guy who wasn’t even her life for the first 20+ years of her existence when she did just fine.

When you’re objective, would you put yourself through any of those kinds of relationships? Of course not! But when you’ve fallen hard for someone, you suddenly find yourself losing your head, losing control, being undone, and being the person you swore you would never become. All because of a little thing called love.

Greatest strength. Worst weakness.

My final proof comes from my favorite TV series, BBC’s Sherlock. In the episode “A Scandal in Belgravia,” a cunning woman named Irene Adler engages in a power play with the government, blackmailing them with secrets which she keeps stored in a locked camera phone, whose password not even the great detective Sherlock Holmes could crack.

In the process, she tries to seduce Sherlock, the man who was raised to believe that “All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage.” So good luck with that, right? She manages to have an effect on him though, and it costs him.
Irene and Sherlock
In the end, she reveals her end game, that since she has proven that her phone and its secrets are impenetrable, the government has no choice but to give in to her laundry list of demands. But before she can collect this, Sherlock suddenly speaks up with a stern, “No.”
“Sorry?” she asks, certain she had misheard.
“I said no. Very very close, but no,” explains Sherlock, turning from his chair to look at her. “You got carried away. The game was too elaborate. You were enjoying yourself too much.” 
“No such thing as too much,” she disagrees.
“Oh enjoying the thrill of the chase is fine. Craving the distraction of the game, I sympathize entirely,” Sherlock walks over to where she is standing. “But sentiment, sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side.”
“Sentiment? What are you talking about?’ she asks, puzzled.
“You.”
“Oh dear God. Look at the poor man. You don’t actually think I was interested in you?” She flashes him a a look of pity. “Why? Because you’re the great Sherlock Holmes, the clever detective in the funny hat?”
“No,” Sherlock responds. He inches in closer, holds her wrist, and leans in to whispers the next words into her ear. “Because I took your pulse – elevated. Your pupils dilated.”
A flashback of a an earlier scene when Irene tries to seduce Sherlock to which he reacts strangely by grazing her wrist with his hand instead of holding hands with her. So that was the reason behind the weird move.
Pulse – elevated

Pupils – dilated
Sherlock then scoops up the locked blackmail phone from the table and continues. 
“I imagine John Watson thinks love is a mystery to me but the chemistry is incredibly simple and very destructive. When we first met you told me that disguise is always a self portrait—how true of you. The combination to your safe, your measurements. But this, this is far more intimate. This is your heart. And you should never let it rule your head. You could have chosen any random number and walked out of here today with everything you worked for. But you just couldn’t resist it, could you? I’ve always assumed that love is a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof.“
He starts keying in the password to the phone. She reaches out to stop him, tears forming in her eyes as she says, ” Everything I said, it’s not real.” Her voice drops to a harsh whisper. “I was just playing the game. “
“I know,” Sherlock responds with an ironic smile. “And this is just losing.” Then he presses the final key and presses enter, showing her the screen and revealing the correct password which he had guessed. And it is:

Clever, isn’t it?

Thank you, Sherlock, for the final proof.

P.S. You can watch that scene I described below. It’s so much better to watch than read about, because of the acting and the music. 🙂

—;<@
This post is part of the A to Z Challenge, a blog hop that goes through the alphabet for all the days of April except Sundays. I have decided to go with the theme of Alliterations. 

Comments

  1. Lucy says

    Ah,love when it is right it is wonderful and in the beginning you do tend to push the world away,happy to seclude yourself with your new found love but lasting love happily gets through that phase and good friends and family members patiently wait because they know a soul mate is the most wonderful treasure for a person :)<br />Lucy from <a href="http://www.lucysreality.com/&quot; rel="nofollow">Lucy&

    Reply

  2. Shilpa Garg says

    Agree completely with your friend…&quot;Greatest weakness and strength – Love.&quot;….It&#39;s quite ironic that in life, the person that brings out the best in you and the one that makes you strong is actually your weakness!!

    Reply

  3. Afshan says

    Every one totally looses mind in LOVE !<br />u r not the only one 🙂 am sure U r a better person and strong one now. God bless and thats an awesome episode and a scene there. Thanks for sharing !

    Reply

  5. Jen Forbes says

    I couldn&#39;t have said it any better than Silvia. We all get our hearts broken once I think we learn and then we move on. Thanks for sharing this.

    Reply

  7. Melanie Schulz says

    Wow. I&#39;ve gone way too long without reading Sherlock Holmes. I didn&#39;t realize until now, but now I see that I have.

    Reply

  8. Nick Wilford says

    Yes, love can make us do strange things indeed… some can be destructive but overall, we would be worse off without it!

    Reply

  11. Kimmy K says

    Your first paragraph pulled me right in and I had flashbacks from my crushed heart when I was just out of high school. I was dating my high school boyfriend since 9th grade and he broke up with me, I couldn&#39;t eat I was so sick. We did eventually get back together and are now married for 18 years now.<br /><br />Blogging A to Z<br />http://www.AMomsPointOfView.com

    Reply

  12. Grammy Staffy says

    I am sorry that your old school love broke your heart when you were a girl. I hope that you will find a sweetheart that will return the love to you that you deserve.<br /><br />I have always liked Sherlock Holmes but I think I would like your BBC version better than I like the new series we get here. I am not happy with the twist they have put on our Holmes series.<br /><br />Have a good day.

    Reply

    • Dee says

      You&#39;re referring to Elementary? Watson shouldn&#39;t be a woman. It&#39;s just not right. The bromance is one of the best things about the story. I&#39;ve seen that series too. I&#39;m not a fan of it either, and not just coz of Joan.

      Reply

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