As mortals, we have this tendency to put things on the pedestal. For the ones unaware about the word, to pedestalize (the word does not exist) someone or something refers to giving a person or a thing paramount importance in your life.

So who do you actually pedestalize? Usually, this thing called ‘love’ makes you pedestalize your lover. When it comes to the person you love, you just do not see anything else but them. Your thoughts towards the person become biased, you tend to show unconditional love towards everything that they do.

I have seen people go aww over ridiculous habits of their lovers. While I have found it uncool, I do agree that this is something that just happens to almost every person in love. This is because we make an image of our lover as the most perfect, i.e. ideal, one. Hence, no matter what they do, we do not see anything unusual in it. For us, all that matters is the person.

What happens when you pedestalize someone?

I am not stopping anyone from being in love. But one needs to know the value of oneself. Nothing is permanent. Apart from your parents, there is none who would unconditionally love you, and even this is not true in every case. So when you feel there is someone who has joined this list of people who love you dearly, you tend you give a part of your life to them.

And with chances of them leaving at some stage of life – not all people are fortunate enough and one has to accept the stark reality – this is very risky. I have seen a lot of people get depressed after their break up. The sudden absence of a person from your life will make you feel sad, because there is a void that gets created.

But more importantly, what a break-up essentially does to you is that you lose a part of yourself. How often have you quit doing something because you used to do it with your ex? I know people who have abandoned certain restaurants because those were the dinner date spots for them with their ex-lovers. Similarly, I have seen people not giving a second look to certain objects, be it certain flowers, certain movies, some songs, some ice-cream flavours, and what not – just because they remind them of their ex-lovers.

A part of you fades away.

I am not prophecising not loving anyone unconditionally. But the point here is that in life, you will meet a lot of people. If you let a part of you fade away with the departure of one soul, you are depriving people who are yet to come in your life from knowing that part of you. What if the one you meet next is the actual one for you? Aren’t you being unfair to them by not being your own self when you are with them?

Easier said than done, but try, just try, not letting a part of you fade away because of one person.

About the art – Recreated in 2015. Found it on Internet. With pens, and pencil colours.