I asked her, “What is it called when you feel so strongly for someone that the emotion overpowers your whole being. That it makes you do strange things. That it consumes all your time. That the very name of the object of your musings spoken aloud sends you into a confusion of sensations. That it changes who you are inside. What is that feeling?”
She thought for a second, then went back to her book.
“Loathing,” she told me, “Its called loathing”.
I knew right away that she was wrong. My infallible, critical, sister was wrong. Loathing was deep, black, cold, envious, and evil. It couldn’t be loathing. Loathing was negative, terrible…loathing was bad. What I was thinking of was a haunting, lingering, painful feeling, but it was not bad.
“No”, I whispered, suddenly, absorbed in amazement that I had figured out what it was. For the first time, I experienced victory, and although it was a silent exultation it was still so sweet. I savored the word on my tongue and tried it out.
“No, I finally said with conviction, “It’s called passion”.