Less Jaded and Tied by a Thread

Our whole lives whether we are aware or not, we are formulating our own thoughts on love. When are we in it, what does love feel like, how do you know? Is love real? These are all things we are processing information on in everyday actions from the time we are born, because it is a basic, primal emotion that is necessary for nurturing, growth and evolution.

Babies who are not held develop less brain cells than babies that are touched and cuddled. We come out of the womb requiring love to survive and develop to our maximum capacity. When we are children we have the love of our parents and how they raise us shapes our impressions on love. We also observe our parents relationship and that guides us whether we mean to or not as we embark on our own romantic tales.

Our subconscious picks up thoughts and signals about love throughout our young lives and then we store it away, building a framework for how we believe love will be. In some cases, this is fantastic and love is the way we think it may be as children. Simple love, were two just look at each other and just know, and smiles light reach from their lips to their eyes and there is no turning back.

However; love is more than just smiles, it has many facets and does not always look the same to all people. What I think love may be may differ drastically from what you think love may be, based on nurture or nature, based on culture, geography and familiar relations. As I evolve and change, I am beginning to realize, different does not equal less. I use to believe that because a man did not express himself the way I expected, that must mean he did not love me. Experiences as of late have led me to believe I have been mistaken.

Another hopeless romantic friend issued a statement pertaining to the fact that love only needed one thread to bind two hearts together. I think there is some truth to this statement. I have also read many places that love is not necessarily about finding the one you live for, but about finding the one you cannot live without. It’s all perception, what is love to us. Instead of looking at something head on, one dimensionally, you have to look at it from all angles.

I always thought love would be passionate, chaotic, can’t stand to be without the person for longer than a few hours, something that would feel like lightening when it hit me and I would absolutely knew I had met my love. Being a child of divorce, I grew up with no immediate examples of couple love in my presence these are ideas I developed from novels, poetry and movies. Which of course is not real, many poets had traumatic lives because they believed so much in the love they spoke of and could not find the same love in real life, they either married several times, took several lovers, wasted away, killed themselves or just lived miserable and alone. Some found happiness; those must have been the ones that could move on from these pre-conceived notions.

I use to write for hours on love as a teenager, before I had even experienced a burning passion; and as you can see, it is still my favourite topic. What I thought love would be like when I found it. Poetry is a lovely and romantic thing, some of the love mentioned in poetry may occur, and one notion found in poetry is true, Love is a treasure, a rare and splendid thing that deserves to be heralded. However, my thoughts as a child cannot guide me my entire live; I will never find satisfaction or happiness if this is how I waltz through life, constantly looking for my next burning passion. That is lust and in the end will only leave an empty hollow feeling.

The truth is, we cannot actually know what love is until we are already in it. Love depends on the two people who experience the emotion. Where they come from, what type of household they were raised in, their personal morals, culture and society where they flourished. When two come from very different backgrounds, they both will not view love the same. Such a simple thing really but a thought that never occurred to me until recently and I wonder, are there others that this thought never occurs to. Is that why we are so mired in times of fleeting love, separation, divorce and infidelity?

I know there is a thread that ties me, and honestly I am not even one hundred percent sure how it got there. Love can be quiet, tap you on the shoulder one day and walk in, capturing your heart in simple ways. I have foolishly tried to cut this thread in the past and only suffered. A good quiet person has simply been constant and I am starting to understand that silence can also be love. I don’t mean a grand passion; I don’t mean someone you have to be with every minute of the day. I mean someone you don’t want to be without, someone who brightens your day just with a few gestures or words, someone you would miss if they never spoke to you again; someone who makes you laugh and gives you a sense of comfort. Someone who could be your best friend and ideally someone you would like to meet some day, just to see if when you do meet, two smiles will light up two sets of eyes and your heart will race.

Only one thread is all that is needed, sometimes that thread is a strong friendship. Sometimes one is more stubborn than the other, and when two are stubborn, goodness! However, if one has enough patience and fortitude, love will eventually win out. Sometimes all that is required is that one stubborn person opens their eyes and realizes what is standing right in front of them, taking the hand that is offered.

Musings of the Temporarily Jaded

Rumbling thunderstorms linger in the distance, quite eloquent, matching the feelings in my own heart.

The expression it hurts to be smart, really is true.

It is hard when you realize your energies have been wasted and taken for granted by someone you trusted.

It is hard when you wonder where your friend went and who is this stranger sitting in front of you?

It is hard when someone tells you in actions or words that you are nothing to them, when for a long time they were everything to you.

It is hard when someone tries to take everything you possess from you, simply cause you will no longer hold them in your heart.

Life is pain. Get use to it.

This is a harsh line to take, but don’t worry, I won’t feel this way forever.

Relationships end and people grieve them in their own way.

When resolve does set in, do yourself a favour and do not look back wondering where you went wrong and if you had done this or done that would things have worked out better. The if’s will only kill you in the end. Everything happens for a reason, so it ends, they just weren’t meant for you.

After your brief mourning period and cynicism has passed, open your eyes to what’s around you and broaden your horizons. Expand your scope and have no expectations.

Love will find you.

Yes I am temporarily jaded regarding love, but I know it will pass, I know my own heart. Heart break and disappointment teach us all one thing; we are human and we feel. Those that do not suffer heart break or disappointment and can shrug off an ending like they are taking off a coat, well their heart is not capable of love.

When one loves truly, they are taking their heart and placing it in the care of another, trusting them to not harm and to cherish said heart, a person’s most precious commodity. If it does not hurt, it means, they never gave their heart. Oh but to suffer the pain of heart break can bring some joy as well. It is a revelation that you have deepness in your soul and much more to share and give if you were to meet someone with the same depth. To experience the pain of a broken heart informs the sad lover that yes, they are connected to themselves and humanity.

Emotional insensitivity is a tough wall to breach and will never be scaled by those who simply love with their whole heart. Emotionally insensitivity cannot be breached by love because it cannot see or recognize love or even know why this emotion is desired.

I have been told I am Emo, I have been told I am moody, melancholy and even erratic. I am not a woman to sit quietly in the corner and avoid confrontation. I was taught by the women in my life to fight passionately for what you want and believe and when it is said and done, embrace the one you love and let them know that even though you disagree, you still love them. However, it does not matter how passionate you feel when you are faced with disregard.

So I am saying to you, lead astray lovers, realize that you are better than that. You do deserve someone who will trust you enough to place their heart in your hands. You do deserve an opinion and a voice to use it and you do deserve to hear a response or answer. I am not saying that everything has to be your way or the highway because that is not love either.

According to the bible, this is love:

1 If I could speak in any language in heaven or on earth* but didn't love others, I would only be making meaningless noise like a loud gong or a clanging cymbal.1

2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I knew all the mysteries of the future and knew everything about everything, but didn't love others, what good would I be? And if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, without love I would be no good to anybody.

3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;* but if I didn't love others, I would be of no value whatsoever.2

4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud

5 or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged.

6 It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

8 Love will last forever, but prophecy and speaking in unknown languages* and special knowledge will all disappear.3

9 Now we know only a little, and even the gift of prophecy reveals little!

10 But when the end comes, these special gifts will all disappear.

11 It's like this: When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.

12 Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.* All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now.4

13 There are three things that will endure--faith, hope, and love--and the greatest of these is love.

Some of you may not particularly enjoy my choice of reference, however it illustrates my point. Love is the only eternal thing. If you have not truly loved and received true love in return then a relationship must end. We are all deserving of the one person who will be the one to love you to the grave and beyond. We all deserve to have that person who will hold our hand when needed or simply when we are old and gray and sitting together quietly.

Remember, when you suffer disappointment and heartbreak you are not alone or without love. Look around you, your friend’s love you and they are the ones who will counsel you and care for you until you can walk on your own. We all need someone to lean on from time to time and I thank all of my good friends that have been my crutch. Don’t forget me when you need someone to lean on.

All's Fair in Love and War

Who coined the phrase all is fair in Love and War? Do you think they fully understood the implications of what they were saying? Furthermore, do people actually follow the phrase or just turn it out whenever another lodges a complaint. If so, do they feel vindicated or slightly foolish?

Which brings to mind another commonly spoken line; fools in love, there’s even an old song, Why do fools fall in love. Does this mean people in love are inane, foolish or silly? At times I will admit, I have felt quite foolish while in the midst of an affair.

So if all is fair in love and war, and fools fall in love, does that mean that only Fools who are in love with war would deign to ever use the line, all’s fair in love and war? You would never speak those words to a lover. However if you are absolutely ruthless in the art of winning said lover’s heart, well perhaps one may think this phrase while convincing themselves that all that they do can be justified by Love.

Pat Benatar claims Love is a battlefield. Why are the two so intertwined? Love seems to be something alien to war, there is no love given in war, war is destruction plain and simple. There is a thin line between love and hate. Does this mean we only pick those we’d love to hate; fools in love that fall out of love, turn to hate and emotional warfare.

What if instead of allowing ourselves to create such destruction and misery, we instead do our best to remember what it was like at the beginning of the love affair, what it was that was good and attracted us to our lover. Would we remember to respect each other and make an ending easier for both? I am not claiming a moral high ground. I know I have been disrespectful and unkind. It is easy to do when suffering. However, a good friend wrote a piece on marriage this week which really made me think a little. What if part of the reason for such irrational and hurtful behaviour is that the heart does not easily fall out of love? Your head may tell you it is wrong but the heart doesn’t always want to let go. So one’s psyche combats this by doing its best to kill Love.

Perhaps today’s society is too consumed with the idea of love to actually be able to recognize it properly? In my culture there is no word for lover or spouse, they simply are the one that walks with me in rough translation. When did we stop walking with each other? When did it all become a race to the altar, a race to a relationship? Are we so concerned with having one that we fail to notice complexities and never truly experience our partners? Really think how often one recently out of love states, it’s like they are a completely different person. Well yeah, of course! If we tell ourselves what we want to hear about a person, and then the blinders come off and we see someone else standing in front of us, maybe it’s not that they changed, it’s that we did not take the time to truly get to know and understand that person before committing to them.

I know this, I am a bitch. I am loving and complex. I want love and it scares the hell out of me at the same time. Sex is important, but so is the sheer bliss of long lingering kisses and hugs that make you feel safe and warm. I am resolved to turn my life upside down and start over, mayhap it is not too late for me to stop being such a coward and go find love, recognize it, grab it and never let it go. When I do, remind me to walk and not run.

TRUTH vs LIES

Everyone claims to want the same thing from their personal relations. There is an expectation that our friends and lovers will tell us the truth, and all claim to wish none the different. When one finds they have been misled or outright lied to there is an outcry and hurt ensues. Cynicism rears its ugly head and reflections on past conversations consume us. My proposition is to avoid this outcome entirely by changing our own expectations.

What if instead of expecting or asking for truth, we instead expect and ask for lies. Tell me lies, tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies, as the Eurythmic’s song states. That way we can never claim disappointment and are jaded from the start so there is no major change in emotions when your expectations are confirmed. If you expect or ask for lies, you can not suffer the bitterness that comes from expecting truth and receiving lies. Ask for lies and you have two possible outcomes, people will either confess the truth (but then you might not believe it) or they will lie and give you exactly what you expected or asked for.

If one chooses this track in life, does one tell all, or keep it to themselves? I would say it’s more fun to keep flagrant disbelief to one’s self. Why let anyone know you are looking at them sideways? We are socialistic by nature, to say to a new friend or lover, I don’t believe you and never will, is not acceptable in polite society.

Polite be damned; concern for the niceties of social structure leave trusting individuals open for duplicitous individual’s exploitation. If a person is sincere they will eventually gain a measure of your respect but to trust outright is just asking for trouble and emotional turmoil.

Human nature and life is a constant evolution, what was true yesterday does not hold true for eternity. Life is precious and so is time, time wasted can never be returned, time spent wrapped in lies cannot be undone. So open your eyes people, (possibly this is more of a mental note!) and realize that only songwriters speak of love eloquently for a reason. Real life does not support the concept of love. Everyone has a secret; or several they are working diligently to hide, everyone has a personal agenda and everyone is playing a game of some sort. Love when enmeshed in games and deceit cannot flourish.

If you are looking for someone to trust, trust yourself. If you need a strong shoulder to lean on, lean on your own and stand on your own two feet. Cynical I know, but if you don’t look out for yourself, who will? If someone is worth your time and your heart, they will take the time to look at you sideways, figure you out and find their way into your heart if the really want to and actually deserve it.