Reason 812 Why Love is not so Lovely
- Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up a whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life... You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' or 'how very perceptive' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love.
- The character "Rose Walker" in The Sandman #65, Neil Gaiman
I sometimes believe truer words were
never spoken.
I am not a fan of love. I have made a habit of destroying love with
logic, romance with reason, and moments with musings. I know every thrill from
every caress is merely hormonal and chemically induced, that my brain is trying
to fool me into falling in love for the sake of attempted procreation, and that
sooner or later I will bore of this and begin searching for my new companion in
the hopes that, some day, I will meet someone capable of holding my eye and my
interest indefinitely.
I know no such thing is possible,
yet I go through the dance anyway, propelled by bonding hormones and compelled
by a societal need for companionship. So
why then does my logic fail me and my heart still wield far more power than I
would prefer over my emotions? Why does
a simple emotion (or lack thereof) influence me to such a depth as to cost me
my sleep or my good mood?
Love, you are a devious mistress,
taunting and teasing me with your wiles and ways. You flaunt yourself about in print and media,
whoring yourself across the expanse of things that may serve to influence
me. Your concepts of perfection, desire,
soul-mateship; they get under my skin and trick me into tossing away my better judgment
and wrapping myself in stolen moments and late night messages. You lead me from my path and tempt me into
the dark recesses of the jungle of the heart.
When you are near I find myself foolhardy as a drunken sailor and ready
to hand over my heart to someone that would most likely let it drop and shatter
as so many grains of sand upon the shore.
What perhaps bothers me more is that
I cannot commit to either path. To be a
fool in love is to be king for a day, to fly with the eagles and soar among the
stars, and to waste away the hours lost in loves’ embrace. Yet my mind is sharp and arms me against folly,
guarding me and keeping me in my fortress of thoughts and far from such
merriment. Yet, still, I may gaze upon
it and see what it is in which I cannot partake; and I find it sometimes
maddening.
I find myself in a constant battle
between intellect and intimacy. With one
hand I beckon and the other I turn away, inviting all to my island but never
allowing anyone to walk upon the shore.
There are few times in this life
when I don’t even know what to tell myself.
I tell myself I’m waiting, I tell myself I’m working on me, but I do not
know if I buy it. I tell myself I am
waiting for somebody amazing, for my soul to see itself in another, for someone
that can make my heart sing. Someone
that makes my soul dance and my heart race and my mind go blank with a million
thoughts and nothing all at once. But
then I fear what happens when those feelings fade, when I’m forced to once again recognize that the
companion with whom I’ve shared my time, my body, and my heart is but a
stranger to me after all; and I must decide whether to part ways or stick
around to preserve their feelings. I
dread that moment with the very core of my being.
Maybe I am chasing dreams and trying
to grasp onto grains of sand; trying to hold onto feelings that have long since
abandoned me. I find myself once again wanting
to spend the night in the arms of love, to feel breathless in their embrace,
and the flutter of my heart upon greeting them.
Perhaps that is the addiction, the fix for which I have been
longing. Perhaps it is my destiny that I
keep moving forward, constantly chasing the next thrilling hunt, never settling
down nor committing until I reach exhaustion.
I do not know what I want, nor what
the future holds. My path is no longer
clearly cut, but the world is instead open to me and I must venture forth,
clearing my way as I so choose. I may find that for which I am looking, or I
may not – this I must accept. I am
flying blind for the first time.
