"...once given never forgotten, never let it disappear."
- John Lennon.
I feel Lennon is perfect for this post. The man had a way with words. Honestly, given that the way I feel on this topic is near indescribable (as it is for everyone I imagine), I feel his words are the closest fit.
I haven't been sleeping lately. Part of it is the usual insomnia, and another portion is bad dreams. But another more vital bit is worry. Worry because (dare I say it?) I'm falling in love.
Honestly, I've liked guys. I've been in relationships. But I've always been chill about the concept of love. I realize there are multiple types of love, and I have no doubt I've loved everyone from a relationship in a unique way. But I'm actually willing to say this might be the real deal. Like "IN LOVE." And it scares me. I'm terrified. Because while I know he has feelings for me, I'm fighting lots of things. The odds of us still wanting the same thing in three months when we're back at school and have the opportunity to start the relationship. The odds of him falling back in love with the ex he's trying to get over. Of the odds of him getting over her as well as me in the process.
This isn't what this whole post is about though. It's more of part of the pre-cursor that led me to my thoughts.
Another contributing factor:
I have a friend (once my best friend in middle/early high school years), who recently broke up with her boyfriend. No big, except it was a four year relationship. When they started dating, late in our freshman year of high school, I was happy for her but concerned. He went to a different high school, I didn't know him, and I was admittedly a little jealous that I would have to seriously share my friends. But I got to know him, he was good to her and for her and he was really easy to get along with. So it became less of an issue. I've always felt there relationship is one of the best for people among my age that I've known. I know a lot of friends that dated for long periods through high school and while I hoped for this, I knew realistically the odds of high school sweethearts marrying was pretty much slim to none. But of everyone, I expected them to pull through. I legitimately thought and hoped they could make it. Because if a couple like them couldn't, then how could the rest of us, who were all struggling in love. And while my friend and I aren't as close as we once were, I truly hope for her sake, as well as the sake of my faith in love: true, unadulterated love, that this will be fixed.
Wikipedia (Yes, I'm using it as a source, for good reason as it represents to an extent, public views) has a section for love. It defines love as "any number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection and attachment."
The fact of it is, while love has multiple forms and there are varying degrees of it, I feel like we try to pass it off as indescribable or incomparable in order to just flat out avoid the topic. In reality, love may not be fully captured by images or words persay, but we can still describe it, or encompass it as how we each individually view it, whether it be through gestures, words, writings, music, art or even whispered hopes and dreams.
Love to me is best captured by the chinese character for love:
According to wiki, this Kanji is divided to what (to me at least) love consists of. The heart is represented by the middle character, inside of the bits for accept, feel, or perceive on the top and bottom.
Love is, giving your heart, perhaps against your better judgement or thoughts, in its true element. No judgement, no alterations. Just pure emotion that encompasses and accepts, no matter the damage. That is love, and that is where it's power roots from.
I think my GT History/English teacher, Mrs. Timmons, described it best when she discussed love with us. For women, the brain is a hallway of doors, where various doors are open at once, representing the multitude of things we're dealing with. When love ends, she closes the door, but leaves it a crack open, ready to come back to it if necessary. For woman, a love, no matter how much time, will always hurt just a little. Men have the same doors, but only one is open at a time. And when love ends, the door is closed, though they may come back to it at some point.
This to me, is important. If we can understand how we love and how those we love feel love, perhaps it would allow for better communications. Perhaps it'll allows us to the say the words we're often afraid of, it'll let us quit overanalyzing and just love, the pure, raw emotion. No thought necessary.
And while perhaps this is my idealism speaking, and I realize that this understanding may not and will not fix the relationship problems of the world, perhaps, it'll make us understand the feeling, and each other a little better.
The honest truth is, while I'm willing to say I may be in love, I'm losing faith in it. I'm terrified. More than I've ever been in my life. Because I want so badly to believe that he loves me back, that he'll still love me in some way when I have my chance to be with him, and that maybe things will truly work out, I feel that, if people I had faith in could lose it, if our divorce rate is at a whopping 50%, if people are more and more resorting to one-night-stands, friends with benefits and hookups instead of relationships, then what chance does little old me have? Me, the girl who has had a series of failed short-term relationships, let downs and rejections. What chance do I have at love with this guy that I want to love me so badly?
Oddly enough, Nietzsche put it best: "There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."
