in fact, I can't stop falling out...

Falling out of love is very enlightening. For a short while you see the world with new eyes.
-    Iris Murdoch

yes, I know.  The post title is lyrics from a Fiona Apple song (Sarah, come to FL one day and I'll give you your prize.)  And the quote is from Iris Murdoch, whom I adore.  But they express the same things. 

I've been thinking recently (and working out in therapy) about those we let into our lives, those we take walls down for, open up to, become emotionally intimate with; those with whom we fall in love, those whom we love. 
Now, falling in love is exhilarating, wonderful, terrifying, exciting, fantastic, amazing.  But it's also transitory and fleeting.  Falling in love lasts an hour, a night, a week.  But it doesn't last a lifetime.  I constantly fall out of love, and fall back in - whether it's with a single person, or someone else, it's the same feeling.  But it doesn't require a lowering of walls or letting someone deeply in.  Falling in love is physical, chemical. 

The letting down of walls that leads to the intimacy of friendship, of love, is something that I'm continually working on in my life.  I don't think walls are unhealthy as long as you're aware of them and know how they affect your relationships with people, and know when to lower them.  Letting people in, loving someone, isn't chemical, it's not physical, it's all about trust.  And that takes time to develop.

When I fall out of love - the chemical kind - it stings but I do see things differently.  I look at others warily, but my trust isn't compromised.  Walls weren't really lowered; I let someone in, but not completely. I know it will happen again and it'll be all those things above. (It doesn't matter either way in the end/Because you'll fall in love again/And there were others before me. - She Wants Revenge, "Walking Away")

When we stop loving someone, someone we let in, someone whom we let see The Stranger (guess I'm in a musical mood) and survived we do see the world differently.  When that happens, whether because that someone hurts us or we just stop loving (it does happen, people change), for a it colors our vision, makes things appear other than what they were. 

How does this actually relate to my life?  Well, I stopped loving my husband.  When I recognized that (though it had happened long before I recognized it), I viewed the world through almost paralyzing sadness.  When I fall out of love, it's a bit of sadness that colors my eyes, but also a sense a hope because I know that I will fall in love again. 

Anyway, I'm loving my life, whether I'm in love or falling out, no matter how I'm looking at the world, it's through eyes that I control.  And I'm working on the walls.