things i hate about love
not really 10 things
Believe it or not I had this whole different script ready for today, about fear, which is now sitting alongside 10 or so other ideas.
If you’ve been here for a while, you’re aware that I talk a lot about love, and how good it is.
Today I come here to hate on it. I’m channelling all the bad energies I can, the negativity that I set aside at the door and I will be a complete menace. I will be insupportable. Warning has been done.
I hate love. Not all the time, but in specific instances. Countless scenarios. It’s hard work, work of the living. It’s what keeps us going on our worse days, and what makes you randomly smile at 2 a.m at your phone screen. Love is as much of a battery as it is draining. An emotional vacuum. It leaves you weary, shoulders down, with an aching back and a faint heart. Doubting, stressing, anxious. In a way, it’s a magic that requires part of your soul. It’s a pact with the devil.
And as much as it might be a personal view, like everything I write here, love is a choice, and like all choices, it requires responsibility, and comes with consequences. Ownability, pride and consistency. You wake up every day, and you decide that you want to love someone or something. That you wish to keep the flame alive, see its spark, watch it burn, make you feel.. something, anything. Until one day it becomes a pattern, engrained in your bones. The way I see it sometimes, love is a pet: you feed it and play with it, but there are also laws you need to draw, limits to teach, otherwise it will poop in your favourite seat of the couch. It’s such a force of nature, the more I love, the more I realise it destroys too, that I lose myself and end up feeling empty, devastated, and more lost than before.
It’s absolutely exasperating. This thing that all songs take as a muse, the balm and remedy to every film or book and piece of media, regardless of how weird or far away from the topic they might be. Many turns are taken so we get the message: love fixes all. Then why is it making me worse? Making me so spiteful I have to write the frustration away. I hate how love drains so much out of me and gives back so little. It feels like a broken promise. The possibility that your efforts can live up to almost nothing and hurt you back in the end, time and time again, is terrifying.
More than just the soul, love calls for a certain amount of vulnerability, which I don’t think I can afford. You gotta put yourself out there and risk getting hurt. And you have to tell yourself, again and again and again, that the pain is temporary and loving will still be worth it in the process. I find myself stuck in this loop, and starting to see a cycle to everything. I love, I give in, joy comes, I rest, love fades, I hurt, rinse and repeat. A monotony that only has me even less motivated to keep on, and that still manages to not feel unconditional, strong, loud all the time.
Of course with this I don’t mean to say it isn’t worth it, isn’t it? What even makes something “worth it”? Have you ever thought about it? Is it a feeling of a job well done, or an outwards confirmation that your struggle is seen? Yes, I say struggle because sometimes we love and we can feel as it costs something from us. How it demands an exchange. Either your ego, pride, or fear among many others. Loving sometimes is exhausting, when I whish it could be as easy as the songs make it seem.
The infamous Sally Thorne wrote that “hating someone feels disturbingly similar to being in love with them”. I’ve always liked this sentence, probably because back in the day I had a serious knack for a funny, well-grounded haters-to-lovers story. Partly since I just feel too much, and my emotions are like mismatched socks put in the wrong drawers. Opposite colours, paired together somehow, peeking from corners that I cant remember ever being there. Love’s like that too. Everywhere, and so out of my control, no matter how much I believe it to be a choice that grows into a habit. The way I act based on love is something I do have a say in, but I stand silent when it comes to all the ways love makes me feel inside, all the things that consume me. Jealousy, doubt, fear, blame, false reassurances done on top of all the bad feelings. They eat me away, this never ending work, this… jumping of a cliff’s edge only to dive ten feet deep into all the same feeling again. A winding road.
I hate love because I take it too seriously, to the point it feels like all I have. To only rely on it makes me feel weak, leaving me feeling defenceless, frail. Like good old Lorde would say, a “liability”, someone’s that’s hard to get through and spiky. If it’s all I have, I hold on to it like a second skin, like a child holds their teddy bear to get through a nightmare, to make the darkness a little less scary and lonely.
So, yeah, there are days where I can’t help but hating loving, so I don’t end up hating myself. Does that mean I’ll stop anytime soon? No, I don’t think so. There’s no formula, no right or wrong. I think for now I’ll suffer through it, take a step or two back, let it bleed in pages and made up scenarios in my mind. Pat myself in the back and ask my mom for another hug. Dedicate my time to simpler things. Living, loving, is weary, and maybe I’ll never learn. But I’m more than all this pain.
Thank you for reading delicate this week. I hope you’ve slept well this week, and that you ate at least one food that filled your soul with joy. Wish me luck on my (very first) job interview next week!
~ DELICACIES OF THE WEEK ~
These pictures with some musings about happiness. Happiness used to feel like a coin toss…
nhi@onenhillionnotes on happiness (1/2)
7:09 PM · Sep 9, 20226.25K Reposts · 26.3K Likes
I saw (and have proudly re watched) Palm Springs, the almost perfect blend between a rom com and a sci-fi. Two people get stuck in a time loop at a Palm Springs wedding: one wants to get away, the other doesn’t. I have such a soft spot for any slightly fantasy-esque story with sentimental undertones. The chemistry between the leads was also superb, although the humor was clearly American (no shade). The script was superb. “We were born lost, but now, you are found.” I’d consider a must watch for fans of ‘Everything, Everywhere, All At Once’, ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ and ‘The Good Place’. (runtime: 90 minutes).
Rina released her new album, Hold The Girl. As expected of an artist with such variety of songs, the whole thing is a blend genres that clash and explode together, becoming something whole. Always laced with lyrics that don’t seem to come from the heart as much as they spill from it, uncontrollably. My picks are Forgiveness (!!!!), Frankenstein and Send My Love to John.
I’ll leave you with the music video for the first single, soon-to-be-pop-anthem This Hell, a feast on love.
SONGS OF THE WEEK: forgiveness by rina sawayama , midnight by toby sebastian and when the morning comes by hall & oates || delicate’s spotify playlist!
relatable. good luck on your job interview!! and i will finally listen to rina's album today i am so excited :)