5 posts tagged “love”

This goes out to 2 couples that I admire a lot. I've been thinking a lot about LDRs and as much as I like to see people on my terms, I still like to see them more often than a great distance allows. 
Good for you, my friends, for being able to sustain it.  A wise woman once said that it clarifies what's important to you. 

Here I am again in this mean old town.
And you're so far away from me.
And where are you
When the sun goes down?
You're so far away from me.

So far away from me.

So far I just can't see.
So far away from me
You're so far away from me.

I'm tired of being in love
And being all alone.
When you're so far away from me.
I'm tired of making out on the telephone.
And you're so far away from me.
- Dire Straits, "So Far Away"

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. 

The more I’m afraid of something, the more I know I have to do it.  I figured that out when I was a kid.  I can lead a protected life – hiding away from the scary world.  Or I can take on the things that scare me the most.  The more it might hurt, the more I might die doing it, the more worth doing it must be. – Marlee Maitlin, The L Word, “Luck Be A Lady”

I'm catching up on season 4 of The L Word.  I'm always a season behind because it's cheaper to buy the discs than subscribe to Showtime.  And, really, the only show I want to own is this one.  The others (Weeds, Dexter, Californication, etc.) I'm perfectly content to get through Nexflix.  But that's not what I want to talk about, nor does it have anything to do with the quote above except I'm watching that episode now.

I spent most of my life afraid.  Afraid of what would happen if I applied myself to something, afraid if I didn't.  Afraid people wouldn't like me if I was me, afraid of being alone.  I became whatever people wanted me to be.  I went to school and wrote papers because it came easily to me and I didn't have to apply myself to do well.  I became a teacher because it was easy.  I worked in libraries and became a librarian because I was good at it and didn't involve risk.  I got married because it was the logical, easy step that was expected of me.  I stayed with him because it was safer than leaving him.  I never took personal risk.

Until last year when I realized that not taking risk had made me miserable and I was tired of it.  Until I realized that taking personal risk was really the only way to enjoy life.  And, really, the reason for it.  So I left my husband whom I didn't really love but felt safe with (2 very different things), started to live as me - fell in love, fell out of love (and continue to do so fairly regularly), been hurt and hit bottom within myself.  I hurt those I shouldn't have, and almost destroyed something I hold precious. 

I have pushed myself to take professional risk and been denied several times.  Do I still have a safe job that doesn't challenge me?  Yes.  But I've also pushed myself outside of just my organization & have presentations and proposals in the works for things not quite what I do.  So it's not safe anymore.

Am I afraid?  Sometimes.  Am I afraid to lose people or that they will hurt me?  Occasionally.  Am I afraid that I might lose a job or screw up my career?  Now and then. But the above quote really speaks to me.  If I could die doing it (or feel like I want to die should it go badly) then it's worth doing, worth keeping, worth trying.  I didn't figure it out when I was a kid; it took me 36, almost 37 years to do so.  It took me that long to come to terms with and accept that safety doesn't mean happiness or contentment but that no one is always happy and if I'm content then I'm not truly living.

Thanks Ilene Chaiken and the writers of that episode for that quote.  Thanks the good friends I've developed this year who have accepted that I'm not going to be perfect and I'm going to fuck up when I take risks, but that I'll learn from it.  Thanks my family (well, most of them) and long time friends who might as well be family who want me to be me, accept me as me, knowing that I'm going to take risks and fuck up.  And thanks me, for getting to the point where I like me and am willing to accept that risk and fear shouldn't keep me from things I want.  And that the things I want are often that of which I am most afraid.

This song came around on the shuffle on my iPod and it just fits the concept of my mood recently so perfectly.  What I want to know is why some people just don't get this...

Course, the audio file is on my other computer and on my ipod, so y'all will just have to read the lyrics.

Jagged Little Pill

Alanis Morissette

1 comment

Not The Doctor - Alanis Morrisette

I don't want to be the filler if the void is solely yours
I don't want to be your glass of single malt whiskey
Hidden in the bottom drawer
I don't want to be a bandage if the wound is not mine
Lend me some fresh air

I don't want to be adored for what I merely represent to you
I don't want to be your babysitter
You're a very big boy now
I don't want to be your mother
I didn't carry you in my womb for nine months
Show me the back door

Visiting hours are 9 to 5 and if I show up at 10 past 6
Well I already know that you'd find some way to sneak me in and oh
Mind the empty bottle with the holes along the bottom
You see it's too much to ask for and I am not the doctor

I don't want to be the sweeper of the egg shells that you walk upon
And I don't want to be your other half, I believe that 1 and 1 make 2
I don't want to be your food or the light from the fridge on your face at midnight, hey
What are you hungry for

I don't want to be the glue that holds your pieces together
I don't want to be your idol
See this pedestal is high and I'm afraid of heights
I don't want to be lived through
A vicarious occasion
Please open the window

Visiting hours are 9 to 5 and if I show up at 10 past 6
Well I already know that you'd find some way to sneak me in and oh
Mind the empty bottle with the holes along the bottom
You see it's too much to ask for and I am not the doctor

I don't want to live on someday when my motto is last week
I don't want to be responsible for your fractured heart and it's wounded beat
I don't want to be a substitute for the smoke you've been inhaling
What do you think me
What do you think me for

Visiting hours are 9 to 5 and if I show up at 10 past 6
Well I already know that you'd find some way to sneak me in and oh
Mind the empty bottle with the holes along the bottom
You see it's too much to ask for and I am not the doctor

Who or what do you really love?

In no order:  My grandmother. My dogs. My bird.  Myself.  Pizza.  coffee.  a good fire on a cold, rainy night.  life.  being in love.