There is a lot I have to say, as usual. The first is: thank you. Mostly, for being so patient with me during the long, wordless months as I get my life into some semblance of order.
I've not been idle! Oh no, quite the opposite. My life has changed dramatically, as it tends to, in just a few short months. As with many changes, there are lessons to be taken note of; information about how one should or should not go about things.
The primary piece of information that I have learnt over these past few long, blog-less months is- (ta~da!) that love is hard. Yes, you got it- the title is the post content. Original!
Waxing serious for a moment though- it just floors me how amazing and complex human emotions are when it comes to interpersonal relations. When I was thirteen, I thought I understood love and relationships. It was being excited to see someone, hanging out with them at lunchtime, stealing hugs and maybe kisses that seem so very naughty behind the P.E shed.
I loved wholly, unreservedly and a little naively when I was thirteen.
Then it ends, you're hurt and you learn from it; and if you're lucky or determined, you find someone else to love.
When I was sixteen I also thought I knew what love was. Feeling a bond to someone, saying 'I love you', sharing experiences, even moving out of home and into their one bedroom place because you totally went out with an older guy that had a car and a stable job so he could provide for you. That's part of love, riiiight?
Of course, at sixteen, often sex comes into the picture (if it hasn't already,) and you can't imagine what life was like without all of those soppy text messages and those interesting facts filling your teenage mind about his early days in a band.
By twenty, I was an expert. I'd been in polyamorous relationships, lesbian relationships, open relationships, alternative sexuality relationships. I had the experience of having relationships that had no convenient label, which is usually when one decides that labels are too 'stifling' and forgoes them completely.
If someone asked me what love was, I'd have an answer ready, at the tip of my acerbically witty tongue, rolling off words like 'commitment', 'deeper understanding' and 'shared interests'.
Now that I'm twenty four, I know something else. I know how hard it is to stay calm when someone you care about is hurting. I know the courage it takes to get up every morning, knowing that you're in a situation with another person that is less than ideal and that both of you are going to be grumpy and tired and that's before you've even got the kids' breakfast and wheedled them into cleaning their room.
I know how frustrating it is to be speaking plain English to someone that's less than a foot away from you and they still don't get what you're saying... Yet they're taking the time to sit there and listen and try to puzzle it out and that gives you a sense of being 'heard' that you've never fully appreciated before.
I know how it feels to be vulnerable to someone else, to intentionally let go of everything that I hide, not only from the world with make up and carefully taken pictures posted to the Internet and an impeccable, intimidating intellect, but from myself- things that I shy from acknowledging because secretly I think they make me less attractive, less 'good,' less lovable. I am lucky enough to know how it feels to have someone that accepts those parts of me... And knowledgeable enough to know what it would be like if they didn't.
In my relationship world, words happen, so often. I talk and talk and still, the problems are there. I laugh, I love and I yell. There is tension and confusion and then something wondrous happens.
I realise that I am still there.
Somewhere, in the late night curled on the sofa in my old nightie with my hair an unruly mop and my unkempt legs, I realised that even though it was difficult I was still trying.
That for once in my life, I had the strength to overcome the urge to flee, to protect myself from potential harm because there was more to it than just me, now.
That with angry scowls, stinging rebukes and a hand flung into the air in a gesture of helpless, final, frustration... I had learnt to control my fear and open the delicate core of myself to a human being that was completely different from me.
I realised, with a smug, self contented clarity that I'd not experienced before, that the man sitting opposite me in his snug grey PJ pants nestled up against the cacti of my legs was still trying. That he, for all of his pain and baggage, was trying to be worthy of my trust, trying to be just as open and raw and was ejecting his feelings again and again and again in a painful regurgitation of honesty that I had to admire.
I realised that sometimes, love is supposed to be difficult.
Finally, I'd grown up enough to understand commitment. To understand that even though things seemed much the same as they had before in other times with other people; that it was different.
Every day we love each other is a day of success for our relationship. Every moment is a chance for growth, every fight an opportunity to comprehend the other a little more.
Slowly, I'm learning to struggle with what unconditional love really means, and to question whether or not I'm capable of it. I'm learning that love is about teaching and learning and having opinions and not saying them sometimes. That it's compromise and stubbornness and disgust and affection.
Love is personal, secret, blatant, biased, inconvenient and beautiful.
Everyone has their own definition of it. I would think, though, that 'difficult' would be a word shared in many stories of love, over many generations.
Of course, when I'm twenty seven, I'll look at this post. I'll shake my head. Perhaps tut a little. Then, I will smile at the discovery of what love really is, because I'll be older and wiser and much more experienced- all the better to make pinhole judgements of what the indefinable word 'love' really means.
I've not been idle! Oh no, quite the opposite. My life has changed dramatically, as it tends to, in just a few short months. As with many changes, there are lessons to be taken note of; information about how one should or should not go about things.
The primary piece of information that I have learnt over these past few long, blog-less months is- (ta~da!) that love is hard. Yes, you got it- the title is the post content. Original!
Waxing serious for a moment though- it just floors me how amazing and complex human emotions are when it comes to interpersonal relations. When I was thirteen, I thought I understood love and relationships. It was being excited to see someone, hanging out with them at lunchtime, stealing hugs and maybe kisses that seem so very naughty behind the P.E shed.
I loved wholly, unreservedly and a little naively when I was thirteen.
Then it ends, you're hurt and you learn from it; and if you're lucky or determined, you find someone else to love.
When I was sixteen I also thought I knew what love was. Feeling a bond to someone, saying 'I love you', sharing experiences, even moving out of home and into their one bedroom place because you totally went out with an older guy that had a car and a stable job so he could provide for you. That's part of love, riiiight?
Of course, at sixteen, often sex comes into the picture (if it hasn't already,) and you can't imagine what life was like without all of those soppy text messages and those interesting facts filling your teenage mind about his early days in a band.
By twenty, I was an expert. I'd been in polyamorous relationships, lesbian relationships, open relationships, alternative sexuality relationships. I had the experience of having relationships that had no convenient label, which is usually when one decides that labels are too 'stifling' and forgoes them completely.
If someone asked me what love was, I'd have an answer ready, at the tip of my acerbically witty tongue, rolling off words like 'commitment', 'deeper understanding' and 'shared interests'.
Now that I'm twenty four, I know something else. I know how hard it is to stay calm when someone you care about is hurting. I know the courage it takes to get up every morning, knowing that you're in a situation with another person that is less than ideal and that both of you are going to be grumpy and tired and that's before you've even got the kids' breakfast and wheedled them into cleaning their room.
I know how frustrating it is to be speaking plain English to someone that's less than a foot away from you and they still don't get what you're saying... Yet they're taking the time to sit there and listen and try to puzzle it out and that gives you a sense of being 'heard' that you've never fully appreciated before.
I know how it feels to be vulnerable to someone else, to intentionally let go of everything that I hide, not only from the world with make up and carefully taken pictures posted to the Internet and an impeccable, intimidating intellect, but from myself- things that I shy from acknowledging because secretly I think they make me less attractive, less 'good,' less lovable. I am lucky enough to know how it feels to have someone that accepts those parts of me... And knowledgeable enough to know what it would be like if they didn't.
In my relationship world, words happen, so often. I talk and talk and still, the problems are there. I laugh, I love and I yell. There is tension and confusion and then something wondrous happens.
I realise that I am still there.
Somewhere, in the late night curled on the sofa in my old nightie with my hair an unruly mop and my unkempt legs, I realised that even though it was difficult I was still trying.
That for once in my life, I had the strength to overcome the urge to flee, to protect myself from potential harm because there was more to it than just me, now.
That with angry scowls, stinging rebukes and a hand flung into the air in a gesture of helpless, final, frustration... I had learnt to control my fear and open the delicate core of myself to a human being that was completely different from me.
I realised, with a smug, self contented clarity that I'd not experienced before, that the man sitting opposite me in his snug grey PJ pants nestled up against the cacti of my legs was still trying. That he, for all of his pain and baggage, was trying to be worthy of my trust, trying to be just as open and raw and was ejecting his feelings again and again and again in a painful regurgitation of honesty that I had to admire.
I realised that sometimes, love is supposed to be difficult.
Finally, I'd grown up enough to understand commitment. To understand that even though things seemed much the same as they had before in other times with other people; that it was different.
Every day we love each other is a day of success for our relationship. Every moment is a chance for growth, every fight an opportunity to comprehend the other a little more.
Slowly, I'm learning to struggle with what unconditional love really means, and to question whether or not I'm capable of it. I'm learning that love is about teaching and learning and having opinions and not saying them sometimes. That it's compromise and stubbornness and disgust and affection.
Love is personal, secret, blatant, biased, inconvenient and beautiful.
Everyone has their own definition of it. I would think, though, that 'difficult' would be a word shared in many stories of love, over many generations.
Of course, when I'm twenty seven, I'll look at this post. I'll shake my head. Perhaps tut a little. Then, I will smile at the discovery of what love really is, because I'll be older and wiser and much more experienced- all the better to make pinhole judgements of what the indefinable word 'love' really means.
