The un-named, the ineffable, the “I can’t forget about it, no matter how hard I try.” Once again, my thoughts are plagued with that which I hate to think about, but that my mind incessantly obsesses over.
I’ll admit it; I am afraid of love. Yet another concept that that people decided to articulate, because there obviously weren’t enough words in the English language to begin with.
Love scares me. Not the type you have with friends and family where you know you’ll drift apart, but the warm glow of memories will shin nostalgically within you for a slight eternity. I’m talking about the love that is a combination of lust, passion, desire, obsession, desperation, and affection tinged with a kind of masochistic desperation. The type of love that makes you feel incomplete without ‘the one’ by your side, and everything seems to remind you of that person.
Some say that love is the most powerful emotion a person can feel. It
overtakes every fiber in your being, weaving it's way through your soul
and killing you from the inside out. It deteriorates your common sense,
causing you to do crazy things all in the name of 'love.'
That is absolutely terrifying, to devote yourself completely and irreversibly to another. To give your mind, body and soul to someone who might not feel the same way, or will lose interest, ow tragically disappear from your life one day.
When you give up your heart to someone, you relinquish all control of your emotions. You willingly hand them away, and you have to trust that the person you consign them to will treat them with as much care as you treat theirs. The amount of trust that must require, to be able to give the controls of yourself to someone else.
There are people who say they have fallen in and out of love over and over in a short amount of time. I’m not sure if they have truly found out what love is. I’ve seen people who claimed to be in love dating someone new a week after a breakup. There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s just not an authentic kind of love. When they do eventually fall out of love and into heartbreak, it will leave them shaken, crushed, and struggling to catch a breath.
Swans mate for life. We are not swans. I believe humans are supposed to fall in love multiple times. However, it is a process that takes time, and the aftermath of broken love leaves wounds that never quite heal. I am a firm believer in the notion that you can never fall in love the same way twice.
I can honestly say that I’ve never been in love, and I don’t know if I ever will be. I’m terrified to show and give every part of myself to someone and end up feeling abandoned, lost, and used.
I’m not particularly adept at handling fallouts with my friends. I don’t think I would be able to handle having my heart broken. What a terrible and selfish notion.
To make myself clear, I’m not afraid of love itself. It seems like a wonderful thing. I’m not afraid of falling, either. That’s the fun part. I’m afraid of what’s at the end of the fall—is there going to be someone to catch me and lift me up before I hit the ground?
All relationships end the same way: alone. Mutual separation, unrequited love, death, and any other type of unforeseen circumstance.
Why would anyone want to give away everything they have for someone else, when they know they are going to end up alone, with nothing left to hold onto? Because love it beautiful and wonderful and agonizing and terrible and amazing while it lasts. It’s something that feels like it will never end. And if one day I’m brave enough to let it happen to me, I might actually believe it.
