my annual survey of love, as tricky as it may be
|8 minute read|
I put pen to paper and I scribbled of love and desires. Illegible notes of the privilege to love. Handwriting weighed down by hope, my a’s turned to o’s, my words bleeding into each other, my friends turned to lovers. Closed eyes, pressed palms. Love has made me feel so dizzy, so out of tune. The act of loving swirls in my mind more than I care to admit, a day won’t pass where I am not longing in some form or another. But burdened I am not, year after year love transforms itself for me. Love as an art form, love as communication, love that makes the world spin or cease to exist. For love becomes so palpable, so transformative, we become the object in which love controls, rather than the opposite.
Falling victim to love, I am no stranger. Love sick, love drunk, loving so boldly, so largely that I am out of my mind. I think to myself how I can make this part of me smaller, less loud, more out of reach. But what a joy it is to love, a privilege! And whether it be tears that sting my face or a smile that makes my cheeks ache, I never walk away from any form of love the same as I was. Those that I have loved, and those that have loved me, I act as a gallery on display. Hanging from me all their desires, their ambitions. I walk as every version of me that has been loved, and every version that has had love to offer.
I can count on one hand those whom I wanted affection. Those who I was willing to let in, willed them to love me back. Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t, maybe it wasn’t aligned. But they are with their other lovers now, and I am here with myself. One time or maybe twice, I laid with my face pressed into my comforter, my tears a warm pool soaking my skin, oh how can love be this cruel. There isn’t a version of love that doesn’t hurt, that doesn’t feel like a bee sting or an ache deep in your belly. There isn’t a type of love that won’t steal sleep from you, that doesn't make you toss and turn over drunk texts or professed feelings. A love without second guessing, “he loves me, he loves me not.” This is all I’ve ever known, and I still wouldn’t turn it down for something sweeter. A love that makes you so sick, is still feeling something, and what is anything worth if not a feeling.
Loving, they say, is brave, but the act of receiving it isn’t any small feat. Lovers, thinkers, and feelers, a tornado in which everything seems too much. To love is to be known, to love is to be changed- this we know. But to love is to be human and to be human is to be vulnerable; a journey with a never ending map. And it’s within this that makes love so cyclical, so cynical. A thing of such simplicity, made so complicated by humanness, or the lack thereof. Loving is bearing witness to those things we hide away, the bruised fruit, the scarred patches of flesh, the thoughts that lay dormant. Palms up, hearts open, we ask to be loved stripped raw of protection, down to our bones, we hold heavy. And yet in this state, we beg, and beg, and beg.
And for those who stand rigid, or in protest of feeling exposed, there lies a silent world of undisclosed love. A purgatory of almost lovers, stuck with unsent texts, unshared feelings, misplaced words. This “could have been” is my other lover. The distance between a friend and something more. A risk without a fall. The two steps off the cliff you just don’t take. And I fear this is where I’ve made my home. Fear of the necessary vulnerability, of shedding the armor in which holds natalie, without shelter, bare emotions, shaking beneath the weight of myself. Not willing or afraid to, something I have yet to discover.
Perhaps it is stoicism that is the villain of wild love. Loving sheltered seems so safe, a calculated risk, a plan B if needed. And it is here that I live too. But my most beloved ideas of loves, those that I find in film or literature, drip in tragedy. The type of love that is so painful, you have no choice but to share it with them. Laurie begging Jo to love him back, and Jo not knowing why she can’t seem to love him the way he wants. Or Connell who doesn't speak to Marianne, and Marianne who does not speak to Connell who hurt each other's feelings over and over again. Or a love that makes someone fearful of losing their independence, but cannot be denied or set aside like love found in Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Or writing prose to somewhat make sense of the feelings in which engulf oneself. These too are my other lovers, the art that showcases that love is hard work, no love comes as easy as one may want. It seems silly for me to find comfort in these situations in any other medium but my own life.
The love I have is often too big for me to carry. Oh, please! Let me share some with you! White knuckled grip on the love I want to give, on the street corner selling it like a case of oranges. Loving out of my mind, deliriously infatuated. I want to shout that I love you and I want you to shout louder that you love me back. But begging people to be loud for you is love left empty. The lack of reciprocity, hung with desire, rocks thrown at the window with no answer. Maybe it’s just the fix of love we all crave, in some twisted way attention is love too. So when we have a moment of a transaction of love, we must understand how lucky we are. To love and be loved back, a sounding board of two people, “I love you”, “I love you too”.
And yet, here I still stand, both hands on my heart, professing, yearning, without saying any words at all. I beg and beg to be loved with stolen glances, touching knees, and a smile showing all my teeth. Don’t you get it? Love that makes our arms weak, our eyes water. We roam around offering love by the armloads, but too afraid to put it all down all at once. Even this love I don’t seem to mind, it’s not worth the pity but at least I know I am not without. Because whenever the smallest moment comes, I am able to fill it with love. To love is to give into the fleeting moment, not knowing if it will come around again. The bubble that swells between two people, encasing them of a world of their own making, that can burst at any moment; that's loving without fear.
To love is to constantly find meaning, within yourself, within others. Whether you like it or not, the best love turns inward. As long as you embrace all that makes up your own being, no love comes close to that of which you give yourself. And in moments in which it does not, the little acts of love, my friends, a stranger on the street, can hold me up tall enough so I don’t sink to the bottom with empty arms.
I wanted this to be a grand piece, moving if you will. And I don’t entirely love what I wrote. Vignettes of my thoughts, scattered brain and love drunk. The love I’ve been feeling has made me short, unorganized, confused. But if I have learned anything is that this love too, shall leave me. And on a warm day, maybe when I am resting my eyes in bed, or perhaps when I am picking up groceries, a new love will land within me. It might be sweet, it might be absolutely awful, but what is love if not an experience. My other lovers, of the past and the future, to which I owe the pleasure of love for the sake of love. On any given day, I buy myself a dozen white roses. But today I bought myself red and I think I’ll be alright.
loving is scary, do it anyways,
nat <3
