an old post...
-----------------------------------------------

love to write. Its a good way of expressing my ideas. One I can think of is my view on Fate in the realm of love. Most people I know of believe that Fate controls love. "It wasn't meant to be" or "It was meant to be". Those are referring to Fate...fate is what's meant to be, usually as destined by some higher Thing. Now, I know this is peachy-keen for most and that really is good because we all need something to believe in. But it just doesn't work for me. In my mind, Love is an expression of ourselves, of who we truly are. Therefore it is a free choice, a free choice of expression. I just cannot see Love being pre-destined. Where's the expression in that? Its like Tim Allen said in Jungle-to-Jungle..."I'm obligated." Is that Love? Well, technically if Fate destined you to Love someone I suppose you do. But then again, marriage is a union of love and do you think arranged marriage - pre-destined marriages - were unions of Love? I doubt it. I apologize for the coming quote...its from something I'm working on, but it was written almost 2 years ago:

"Morich took his leave as they fell in love over again, his heart happy and his head feeling light. He left the Great Hall and wandered about, thinking about nothing and fully caught up in it. He found himself on the ramparts of Postaria, with blackened fields below him and grey skies above. He and his lord had survived yet another battle and now could hopefully enjoy a few years of peace. For years he had been promising them to Serena, and every time he did, she smiled and kissed him saying, “I know. Soon.”
His love for her was great, and no word of description could ever do true justice for it. Since the development of vernacular, poets have written about Love, so beautiful and perfect that only Fate could have been the cause. It was Fate who brought two lovers together; Fate who decided they were the only ones for each other. Each lover was made for each other and no one else. Fate told the heart what was right; Fate told the heart it was made to Love their one and only. Fate and Fate alone brings soul mates together, fixing events so that they may meet.
Or so the poets wrote.
Morich’s love was more true, his life more beautiful because he saw beyond this preordained romance. It was not Fate that had brought him and Serena together so many years ago; it was chance.
Morich no doubt believed in Fate and its powers, indeed it had shaped many events in his life. But calling an event an act of Fate is to say it is predestined, and Love is something that simply cannot be so. The heart that one is to Love cannot be predetermined at one’s creation, for Love is never idle. When one claims a Love to be owed to Fate, then by Fate it is destined to fail, for to call it Fate is to only hope that it is indeed Love.
But it is not so. Love is not planted at birth, to lie dormant until it may sprout. Love is a collection of moments, each one cherished reverently by both the lover and the loved. It is not a seed set by Fate, it is an instant when two eyes meet. An instant when Love explodes in such a fashion that one thinks it was stored up for years.
Yet, alas, no. Fate has no credence over Love, for it is free. Some may say that chance is no more than Fate, with a little less Providence.
Indeed?
If it were Fate whom decided Love, then our eyes could meet thousands more and still find not who they look for. For Fate would have ruled it to one person and that person alone. But Love is free and mustn’t be chained as such. To love because of Fate, and to be loved in return because of thus, is to love and be loved by obligation, an obligation to Fate.
But the beautiful truth is Love is free. It is up to chance that our eyes meet a thousand before we fall in Love. And what decides upon whom we fall into Love with? Love. When Love chooses you, there is no doubt, and even if there were a way to avoid it, you wouldn’t want to. You fall in Love with someone by chance. It could be anybody, not just one person – anybody.
Morich understood this, and from this understanding he had experienced so much more than the chained-down lover. In the winter, his Love warmed him deep within; In the summer, his Love quenched his heart; he awoke in the morning with gratitude for one more day of moments built out of Love; he rested when the sky was gold in reflectance of his Love, he slept with sorrow for it being the end of the Love-filled day and he dreamt of no other but Serena. And he was blessed in that never did he grow weary of this; never did he wish for someone new, something exciting, for Love is neither. Love is sustaining to its own and will suffice your heart for all time.
Although he and Serena were soul mates, he was not destined to be with Serena. He was lucky to be with her and for this he could not be more grateful to be with her."

To clear this up right now, I am not attacking Fate. Fate exists. Fate works its powers over us everyday, even with Love. What I am saying is that I see it as acting in bringing two people together only - the rest is up to the individuals to seize the oppurtunity given to them by Fate. So I'm sorry if I upset anyone with that. I've found that holding to the perception that Fate brings people together often keeps them together something which is destructive to those involved...and yes, yes I do speak from experience...

http://www.columbia.edu/~gm84/gibran2.html . It is brilliant. And true. you might wish to read the rest too.  A very thought-provoking piece of literature. 
Okay.  Here's an admition.  I am a romantic.  I believe in Love.  Love does not conquer all. Love is the *means* to conquer all, but Love is not always enough, unfortunately. I know of nothing more humbling at the personal level. Nothing is so wonderous as truly feeling Loved. That someone could hold ME in the center of their universe is beyond me, same as why someone would. I am but a speck, another passing mortal. Oh, yes I am a human being, I have thoughts of my own, blah blah blah...does not the rest of humanity? And yet, that someone would actually pick ME out of that jumble...le sigh but I find it very humbling. Don't you? I sometimes feel as if the wonders of nature were created by God or Nature or whatever you might believe in to describe that one special person. But what can describe Love? Words can be very close, but not even Kahlil Gibran hit it.