everything i know about love (part 2),
the ever present enigma
“People are messy, and love can be ugly. I’m inclined to always err on the side of compassion.”
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Last week, I reminisced over how I don’t think I’m made for romantic love. About how what I know about romantic love has been perceived through pieces, clues from not experience but mostly my senses, how the line between love and obsession has always been incredibly faint ever since I can remember and how I learned that love isn’t a contest, and as you love and let others love, there shouldn’t be any ranks.
At the end, I was left still with one question: if love’s not a competition, why do I feel like I still fail at loving? How exactly do you fail at loving? Why do I let myself believe in all the crap, egotistical garbage my brain feeds me? Loving someone feels so much like a performance sometimes. Have you messed up your lines? Did you use the wrong tone, the wrong voice key? How did you meet their eye? Courageously? Shyly? When I’m at my most fragile, the tendency is to believe that my role has been switched, my presence no longer needed. Insecurity screams, shouts, points the finger and accuses me of not being a good actress. And why is that?
The notion that you accept the love you think you deserve. That the love you receive is a reflection of the love you give to yourself. If I am a bad friend to others, if I am back at square one of actively hating myself, being the one with the knife and the closed fist, ready for a fight, the love that surrounds me will never be enough. I will never be enough, to others or myself. I’m not claiming those beliefs are wrong — just that I never seem to remember them when I am happy, only at my weakest. All in all, insecurity, that’s what speaks louder a lot of the times, the production director that fires me from the movie I star in.
I hardly ever feel at peace when I love, when I exist. There’s always a soft rumble, a disturbance. I fear it will always be there, this uneasiness, as I live. This rooted fear that everyone I’ve ever loved has hated me, hates me, holds something against me. That I’ve been loving them wrongly, that this time I took one day too many to answer back, said the wrong joke, won’t be forgiven anymore.
Then, eventually, I stop. Because I am not the spokesperson of love. If I have any say in all this, I will be, I am the manifestation of all the love I want this world to have. I can’t claim to say what love is wrong or right, how you should do it or not, although I have my beliefs. I stop, ask myself when was it the last time I felt loved, what in particular made me feel that way, how did I love yesterday, today, tomorrow. There’s some ease, some clarity when I analyse things like that. I remember that forgiveness — no, compassion is the glue, the antidote to take when love feels broken.
There’s no silence, no stillness though. The insecurity is still there. The only thing I can be sure is that if I see love as exchange, it will rarely be an even one. To love is to know you’re sending a letter that might never be answered to, and that sometimes you’re the one that didn’t reply. Accountability sure should be put where it is due, but to obsess over it, chastise yourself and others over and over again over who loved wrong and who loved right will wear you down. A rock hitting another rock either creates waste or a fire.
I’ve said it before, but there is a selfishness in insecurity. Sometimes, lost in my self-doubt, I worry if love is something you can waste forever. If I will ever run out of love to give. That I’ll one day tire the muscle on the left side of my chest and never be able to fall in love again. Other times, I crave so very badly to love unabashedly, with no measure. To, in a fashion similar to obsession, show the world, prove myself and those I care about that I love them.
Maybe love just comes with some mild discomfort. That’s a thought I had a couple of weeks ago. Maybe the problem is that I keep wanting love to be calm, stable, controllable. No, love isn’t the fable of security I thought at 17, and no, love isn’t as weak and changeable as I sometimes think at 20. Love is all around me, and it holds no shape, and it may be the mightiest thing in the world.
What does all of this says about love? I think it proves that love is a sort of living thing. That it exists not in us but with us. Love inhales when I smile at a friend and exhales when they smile back. It inhales when I notice I am remembered, thought of, cared about. Love breaths when I embrace it, let it both in and out of me, when I wait for it at the door and when I let go of everything, the shame, the fear, and chase it, go look for it, plant it, water it, watch it grow. That it doesn’t exist alone, and that I make it seem 100 times more confusing that it actually is.
Close your eyes. Feel it. Let yourself feel it, not think it through. Love is easy like that. For now, that’s all I know.
delicacies of the week:
This letter I read Tuesday from Devin Kelly - thoughts on cruelty and light. It had so many interesting instances, just mentioning has me eager to reread it.
Cleaning and organizing. They say that a clear desk equals a clear mind, and that when you’re lost, panicking and distressed, your desk reflects that. I notice that it’s appliable to me, and I take a lot of joy in cleaning my room, my house. My nighttime routine (or whatever resembles that) is usually spent cleaning, so I can wake up and feel like I’m ready to take a fresh start.
“The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins Reid, which I read this week. I loved it so much, it was one of the most intriguing reads I’ve ever had (and I'm happy that a super famous book finally lived to its hype for me). The audiobook was nearly perfect, the charm and elegance and ugliness of all the book felt faithfully portrayed. I’m very excited to see this on a screen one day.
songs of the week: slow dancing by aly and aj, august by taylor swift and tilikum by benjamin francis leftwich || delicate’s spotify playlist!
Thank you for reading delicate :]