This little bit of an entry was inspired by an e-mail I was writing to, you guessed it, Tom.
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Tom, I don’t mean to scare you with the things that I say or write. Sometimes I get the feeling that I do. On Friday you said that you’re happy and fearful at the same time when it comes to me, and that you want to be happy, with no fine print or added bonus. I want the same thing. My own fear is what scares me.
In my life, I’ve witnessed the bottom falling out of every major relationship that’s surrounded me, including my own. To me, it’s only inevitable that things will fail because nothing stays the same, even when you want it to. People fall in love, but love goes through metamorphosis over time. At first one Falls into a vast land of astonishment, then plunges head first into being In Love, where everything is beautiful and one’s own heart feels as if it has expanded to hold such feelings for another person. With gradual time, Lover’s High begins to wear off and the Real World begins to replace the fantasyland one was in. Arguments arise, resentment is held, and one begins to wonder what is so wrong. Of course, there’s make-up after make-up because life is only compromise in disguise. Everything is good, love is something very real and tangible, but it doesn’t hold the same edge that was there in the beginning; it’s enough to keep one around, because thoughts of breaking up only break one’s heart. More time passes, whether it be weeks, months, or years, this love alters. By this point, one of two things has occurred: Breaking Up or Mutual Love.
Breaking up can be difficult, even a struggle, but it happens. One finds that the significant other that once occupied all of one’s thoughts just wasn’t all that after all. After recovering from a Break Up, one moves on, usually repeating the process that is Love.
Mutual Love tends to derive from long term relationships and marriage. One loves that special someone, but it’s not the giddy, this-is-the-one, I-can-hardly-breathe-when-I’m-with-him/her love. No, it’s the this-is-my-companion-whom-I-care-about-and-have-emotional-ties-to, i.e. children, mortgage, bills. It’s the not so exciting version of love that can get very boring, maybe even requiring a counselor or self-help books to rekindle the passion or mend the problems that come with it.
In this day in time, Mutual Love tends to break up eventually, anyway.
Seeing the little red hearts and tasting the sweetness that comes with love isn’t impossible for me to do, it just requires a bit of work. I’m cynical and pessimistic, logical and complicated. Those characteristics tend to butt heads with my feelings and hopefulness, both, which encourage me to put myself out, even if it means that I might get hurt in the process. They tell me that love is achievable and that I’m worth the effort it will take that someone will want and care for me in a way that only love creates.
With all of my negativity and emotionally dysfunctional ways, I know that I deserve to have love and that I’m damn well worth it. The person who is on the receiving end will have the strongest and most intense sense of love from me, because when I put my heart and soul into something or someone, my passion runs wild. That passion will be his, even if it comes to past that we were not meant to be.
I want that, because I know that this, for once, is the time in my life when I’m most prepared and capable of real, true love.
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