I had a very nice lunch with some friends the other day that just spurred me to feel an intense inclination to sort of throw in even more of my brain's spare change once again. We talked about all kinds of things:authors, books, poems, politics, etc. But we also happened to touch on cultural differences and the idea of a Utopian society and what that would mean (and of course love though not simultaneously) and here is what I think of those things.
Scratch all that. I'll hit it all in another post. In this one I'm just going to cover some things about "love".
Here is what I've always been told about it:
-nobody can ever love you more than you love yourself
-It is just as much work as it is fun
-It comes and goes given time
-Sometimes we don't get to choose who we love
-And it sucks
But one thing I had to deduce for myself that nobody ever told me was that it never really leaves you. I mean sure, the physical presence of whom you poured all your heart into might, but those feelings never do. Over time you will think about it less, or hardly ever. And you'll even move on to another and find that, despite all the long nights you spent scouring your mind for where things went wrong, that everything is alright. But what never quite passes off and dies completely without a trace is the vulnerability and tenderness that they will always tease out of you just by even being there. You may hate them for leaving you and doing whatever they did, but within reason you will always still maintain that you will be there for them as a last resort if they are ever truly in need-- and you do not offer that service with reticence. Because no matter how illogical or impractical the ordeal and relation you manage to maintain with that person, your brain will always lose that battle because it is not one that it is meant to fight.
And I mean this sort of lingering "phantom limb" type pain that love can sometimes bring about doesn't just pertain to itself. Childhood traumatic events and so on are no different. Just because we grow and learn over time how to better cope with them does not mean that the problems go away or stop existing. There is no guarantee that the pain will ever leave you-- only that if you choose to fight long and hard enough, some day you can become callous and strong enough to take the pain without wincing or waning and live your life. Sometimes part of that process means understanding that in some ways life just sucks (or is unfair) and there are just no if's and's or but's about it. It is a given. But it also means that people aren't mislead into thinking that they are irreversibly broken and destined for calamitous failure in whatever way, shape or form they fear most (something I still battle with though not as much as I used to). Instead, they understand that just like the good times and the laughing lines, the scars are part of them and will get air time whether we want them to or not; so we might as well dress the cuts well and keep putting our best foot forward.
Dear Friend, it may be a good number more months or even years before the home she had built in your chest vacates and weathers away. But you have to stop thinking that every moment of weakness or emotion that you hit is your body innately telling you that she is the one because it is a self-fulfilling prophesy that needn't continue. You fall into loneliness, and in that state fall back into remembrance of what once was, and in this way jump to the conclusion that it is and can only be because she is one day going to be your wife. This is unhealthy in more ways than one and the only reason you haven't seen it yet, old boy, is because you choose not to. Time and time again you point your attention to your former SO and think that leaving her was a mistake, when to be brutally honest, your mindset was and still is. You deserve great, great things. But I cannot see those things coming to fruition and being bountiful in your personal journey until you figure out how to love spending time with the person in the mirror. Not to mention believing in yourself and the decisions you've made thus far in your life. Cut yourself some slack, man.
Pain isn't a sign that you should run back to her
Pain
Even if only for a moment
Is a sign that you cared
That things mattered
And proof that
At least for you
Good man
It was all very real
Find peace in that.
Scratch all that. I'll hit it all in another post. In this one I'm just going to cover some things about "love".
Here is what I've always been told about it:
-nobody can ever love you more than you love yourself
-It is just as much work as it is fun
-It comes and goes given time
-Sometimes we don't get to choose who we love
-And it sucks
But one thing I had to deduce for myself that nobody ever told me was that it never really leaves you. I mean sure, the physical presence of whom you poured all your heart into might, but those feelings never do. Over time you will think about it less, or hardly ever. And you'll even move on to another and find that, despite all the long nights you spent scouring your mind for where things went wrong, that everything is alright. But what never quite passes off and dies completely without a trace is the vulnerability and tenderness that they will always tease out of you just by even being there. You may hate them for leaving you and doing whatever they did, but within reason you will always still maintain that you will be there for them as a last resort if they are ever truly in need-- and you do not offer that service with reticence. Because no matter how illogical or impractical the ordeal and relation you manage to maintain with that person, your brain will always lose that battle because it is not one that it is meant to fight.
And I mean this sort of lingering "phantom limb" type pain that love can sometimes bring about doesn't just pertain to itself. Childhood traumatic events and so on are no different. Just because we grow and learn over time how to better cope with them does not mean that the problems go away or stop existing. There is no guarantee that the pain will ever leave you-- only that if you choose to fight long and hard enough, some day you can become callous and strong enough to take the pain without wincing or waning and live your life. Sometimes part of that process means understanding that in some ways life just sucks (or is unfair) and there are just no if's and's or but's about it. It is a given. But it also means that people aren't mislead into thinking that they are irreversibly broken and destined for calamitous failure in whatever way, shape or form they fear most (something I still battle with though not as much as I used to). Instead, they understand that just like the good times and the laughing lines, the scars are part of them and will get air time whether we want them to or not; so we might as well dress the cuts well and keep putting our best foot forward.
Dear Friend, it may be a good number more months or even years before the home she had built in your chest vacates and weathers away. But you have to stop thinking that every moment of weakness or emotion that you hit is your body innately telling you that she is the one because it is a self-fulfilling prophesy that needn't continue. You fall into loneliness, and in that state fall back into remembrance of what once was, and in this way jump to the conclusion that it is and can only be because she is one day going to be your wife. This is unhealthy in more ways than one and the only reason you haven't seen it yet, old boy, is because you choose not to. Time and time again you point your attention to your former SO and think that leaving her was a mistake, when to be brutally honest, your mindset was and still is. You deserve great, great things. But I cannot see those things coming to fruition and being bountiful in your personal journey until you figure out how to love spending time with the person in the mirror. Not to mention believing in yourself and the decisions you've made thus far in your life. Cut yourself some slack, man.
Pain isn't a sign that you should run back to her
Pain
Even if only for a moment
Is a sign that you cared
That things mattered
And proof that
At least for you
Good man
It was all very real
Find peace in that.
.
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