OVER the past year, I have learned a thing or two about love. I find the power of love fascinating and contradictory at the same time.

Besides being able to turn a perfectly normal person into a giddy, beaming creature; love also has the power to unhinge the most rational of us.

If you’ve ever been in love, you might agree that love can make us a little insane at times.

An intelligent, successful person would cry, beg and flood their partner’s mailbox with a dozen incoherent messages, all because of love. In the face of love, any pride that we might have gets flushed down the drain.

There also are instances where the opposite is true.

I find that love and pride are so closely intertwined that the mere movement towards one or the other can change the outcome of an disagreement between couples.

Anger and pride are also never far from each other. It is anger that spurs us to make the most hurtful remarks and it is pride that stills our tongue when we want to say we’re sorry.

Anger makes us forget ourselves and gives us a temporary sense of power. We say things we don’t mean and when we want to run after the one we love, it is our pride that keeps us rooted to the ground.

No one is perfect and it is our battle with pride and anger that makes up human love. We either allow anger and pride to take over or we can try very hard to let love do the talking.

After all, pride, anger and regret will not keep us warm at night.

Love is also a very strange notion. We can promise our partner the earth and the sky, whisk them away on luxurious holidays and feel happier when we hear their voice on the telephone; yet we can be rude to them, careless with their feelings and take them for granted.

You wouldn’t put as much effort into a friendship and you also wouldn’t abuse it; yet when it comes to relationships, you could be operating on both ends of the scale at the same time.

It doesn’t take one long to figure out that we are at our most vulnerable when we are in love. Even the strongest and meanest have been known to be defeated by it.

Love may have the power to heal, but it also certainly has the power to break someone and turn them into a shadow of their former self.

I have found that showing our love is not just giving what comes naturally to us when we are happy.

It is always easy to love someone when we’re in a good mood but when things aren’t so peachy it can be such a struggle to remember how to show that love.

Although I am a naturally affectionate person, I find myself behaving more like Mr Hyde than Dr Jekyll when angry or upset; ashamed as I am to admit.

“Never make a decision when you’re angry” is a motto that I’m glad my boyfriend practices and has constantly reminded me to stand by.

Falling in love is easy but no one seems to advertise the fact that it isn’t as simple to sustain that wondrous feeling.

The thing is, we can have the best education from the most prestigious university, but when it comes to the matters of the heart, we have no way of preparing for it.

There is no other way to understand love than to learn about it the hard way and hope that our heart, and the hearts of those who love us, survive the ride.

I don’t find Valentine’s Day overrated as I see it as an anniversary of love.

After an entire year of learning about love and being a better person because of it, wouldn’t you want to celebrate too?

Oyster Sauce