This is the thing about things.
I don’t have an answer, and it doesn’t seem like anybody else does either. Today, I’m happy because I’m ridiculously in love. And my friends care. They’re there; I hope they’ll remain there. I hope everyone stays.
I feel more peaceful today. I feel happy. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, besides that I feel so blessed and lucky. I found what so many of us spend our whole lives searching for. I found him. I met my soul mate. And he loves me back. He loves me back!
I was thinking yesterday, as we were walking arm-around-waist back from dinner, about how the person that you love morphs into a being that’s more than human when you love them so much. When your love for them reaches a certain level, it becomes more than love. It’s more than love! It’s not trite, it’s not immature, it’s not love as we know love. It’s something more, it’s deeper, it’s more important. It’s not an unhealthy or an obsessive or a codependent love. I’ve had that; I know what it feels like, I’ve lived the incessant ups and downs and ins and outs and back and forths. It’s a terrible and destructive way to love. I’ve worked hard, throughout my many caustic love affairs, and loves, and codependencies, to become a person who loves without needing to be encompassed by, or to control, the other person. You have to coexist; one of my prior people always used to say, we have to complement each other, not complete each other. So my person, my other, my mate, seems like this being beyond all other beings; even the things that might have bothered me before have a taint of cuteness. I feel like he’s a miracle, and every attendant thing about him likewise is as well.
I know he loves me too. I just hope he loves me enough. I hope he loves me that way. I hope he lovesmelovesmelovesme. You know what I mean.
It’s hard to be happy, though, you know? You feel feel like you don’t deserve it; or that the higher up you are, the further you fall, so why not stay low; or that it’s all an illusion anyway. It’s hard to know what’s real. Sometimes I wonder why I’m so lucky; why do I deserve this? Why don’t other people find it? Why can’t other people have it too? I wonder if I should hold back in case he decides to leave. I wonder if I could ever recover if he did. I wonder what my life would look like without him in it; he’s “the butter to my bread, and the breath to my life,” as Paul Child would say.
I'm really proud of the progress I've made in the context of friendships; I have learned so much about what it means to be a friend, what it means to have friends, what friends aren't. I've tried to shed the vestiges of the past, the memories of terrible and treacherous and vicious friendships. I've tried to unlearn, and am still in the process of uninstalling and rewiring the wiring of my past experiences that inform the present.
I love my friends; I've worked hard to start and maintain my friendships, because, as much as I love my love, he can't be everything. Friends are the glue. My love is the sun, my friends are the water. I need them both. I need them all. I was relating to one of my law school girlies the tremendous, and sometimes crippling, fears about being left behind this summer, or having everyone in Philly grow out of me during my absence, when she said to me :
"it'll be great. don't worry. i think you just gotta trust. you want to go on your trip with a total open mind and soul."
And of course she's right. Who could argue? Yes, I need to trust. But trust is hard. Because what happens when you trust and your expectations fall flat? What happens when you believe, and people just don't hold up their end? You're left looking like an asshole, and an idiot. A damn fool. I suppose, though, we're always taking that risk when we do much of anything in the way of hoping or counting on or expecting, especially when whatever it is is dependent upon other people.
All I wanted to do today was write and write and write and think about my love. I feel the need to be solidified in things before I leave, which I know is impractical, and unwise; unfortunately that doesn't mean the desire and the urge dissipates. Logic sometimes can't counteract our evolutionary instinct to tie things up neatly, to package everything and declare it known. Conquered. Perhaps it would be foolish because it would ultimately lead to our early demise, I just can't stop thinking about it. What is wrong with me? I can't stop! It's become an addiction, one I hope will naturally peter out as most of my momentary obsessions do. My prediction is that after I leave, I'll be happy things weren't wrapped up, no promises were made, but in the meantime everything feels like it's flailing around and I just want to know. I want to know for real. I'm real, the way I feel is real. I want to know that what I have is real too. I suppose in some ways we never really know; people are fickle, feelings and thoughts even moreso. Moments are fleeting. Life itself is a temporary condition, it's natural to think that everything within it would be just a microcosm of that brevity.
At the same time, I think the anticipation is really what I savor. In anything. Anticipation and remembering. Often living it isn't all it seems like it should be. I must relish the now, the lead-up, the almost. The time before. I will, this is my new goal. Heed the now. Heed the now. I don't want to be locked down, confirmed, or owned; I really just want to know that that love is there. That it will last. That it persists and won't burn out. I just don't want anyone to burn out on me. Especially him.
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