Love is a verb. I agree.
Love is a feeling. I agree more.
You can do all the right things, or have all the right things done for you, and still feel nothing.
You cannot feel all the right things and not do the right things.
The verb without its feeling is a tragedy.
It is maybe something that is difficult to explain, but I know it like I know my name.
Let me call it faded love.
It is there but it has lost its colour, its fragrance, its warmth, its sound, its taste.
It is there but it has become unrecognisable.
It is the most conflicted part of being human. You feel nothing, yet you feel a need to feel guilty, but the guilt does not take root because it means nothing.
However, you do not let go without a fight. You do the usual rituals of love, but the rituals become a chore—hard work that dumbs down instead of lift up the spirit.
A chore that longs for you to let go, because chores prefer being rituals—performed with love and reverence. The chore lasts as long as your sense of duty, wearing you out as you tarry.
The real tragedy in this story is the other party. They see you do all the right things but can tell that your heart is not in it. They pity you, but they pity themselves more, so they wait and hope for a miracle. But miracles do not come for nothing.
Love is a verb that is best served in its feelings.
– Osasu Oviawe