I feel like somewhere along the way we’ve lost the true meaning of love. Or maybe it’s just the act of actually being in love that’s been lost. Or quite possibly the idea of love, that has blinded us to believe it should all just work itself out. That the person you love will fill all these gaps in your life that you’ve failed to fill on your own.
We’ve evolved as a species to need and want and have, and to need and want and have even more. Never reaching any form of actual satisfaction. Never taking the time to be grateful for what we do have. Always looking at the neighbor’s greener grass and fixating on how to make ours even greener.
In relationships the same is true. We meet, we date, we share the most intimate parts of our being with one another and maybe we even fall in love. Then the moment things get rocky, or the moment the relationship becomes work, we bail. We have trained ourselves as a society to always be looking for the next best thing. We jump in, fully clothed, go balls to the wall, (most of the time WAY too quickly I might add), and then when we’re shown the dark crevices of real life in that other person, we’ve pack up, shipped out and moved on. You think you’re so damn perfect? Then why the fuck would you expect me to be?? You’ve lived this wonderful life free of issues and imperfections, that you think no one else has suffered from any past pain either? It’s not love you want my dear. What you want is perfection, glamor, instant gratification.
We’re so in love with the idea of being in love that we don’t even know what true love looks like anymore.
Well I’ll tell you. It’s ugly and raw and devastating and hurtful and a total shit storm. Some days it’s the most painful part of your entire being. It’s illness and scars and the deep dark past you’ve kept hidden from the world. That now, now you have to figure out how to get through, at the same time that I too have to work through mine. It’s tears and screams and hateful, hurtful words. It’s passion. It’s fire. It’s fear.
And other days, well other days it’s the most magically, beautiful, unexpected and wonderful chaos your heart could ever imagine. It’s flutters in your heart and punches in the gut, it’s laughing until the sun comes up, it’s disappearing from the world and running away to be wild and free. It’s knowing how the other feels even before they can feel it. It’s a warmed up meal on a hard worked day. It’s silence when it’s needed or long talks late at night be you’re feeling alone. It’s pure and utter joy in the simplest, most mundane of tasks, because that part of your heart is right there with you by your side, sharing their world. It’s strength in a bond that no matter how hard the world tries, can never be broken. It’s the look of your scars in the others eyes because your pain is now their pain too. It’s never giving up just because things get tough. It’s sticking through thick and thin and ugly growth, and then having that same support given back to you when it’s your turn to grow.
Love isn’t rainbows and butterflies.
It’s just as real and raw as you are.
It’s just as ugly as your worst days
And as beautiful and bright as your best ones.
It isn’t simple and it isn’t always kind, but it’s worth each triumph and every struggle.
For you can only be your truest most beautiful self, when you’ve pushed your own needs aside, even for a short while, and loved another with your whole heart.