How can we find love and be satisfied with it when we’re taught to seek saviors? Maybe it’s just the music and media I was attracted to, but it all seemed to lean heavily on someone coming to the rescue. More specifically a man. Listening to some of my favorite music from high school and re-watching some of my favorite movies, it makes sense that I would make that my mission. To be rescued.
How quickly I can romanticize a situation. Without missing a beat, the maladaptive daydreaming takes hold. It can write the most mesmerizing happily ever after. Constant love and affection, houses and sometimes babies. We can have anything we want as long as we have each other. But do you know what is always missing in these enchanting delusions? Actual fucking people.
I like to imagine everyone wants to divulge their darkest secrets, dive into the pains of their past or let me meticulously comb through their inner psyche. My love language is knowing you’re as fucked as I am and willing to share that with me. It’s a problem. 😅 I’m working on some boundaries with that now. Not everyone wants to know every detail of my life, some don‘t deserve to hear it and more so, I must respect when people are content where they are. Just because I want/need to regurgitate the pains of my past, doesn’t mean everyone does.
The shits not easy. It’s time consuming, it makes you feel crazy, and it alienates you. The panic attacks get worse, the flashbacks become more prominent. All of it gets so much worse before it gets better. On really bad days I regret ever starting the journey backwards. Unfortunately, it‘s apparent that if I want to move forward, I must go backwards first.
My husband loved to tell me that love isn’t like the movies. This I know for certain. But I never wanted it to be like the movies. And I didn’t want it to be like the songs. I wanted it to be like books. I wanted every detail brought to life. I wanted the beginning, the middle and the end of someone. I wanted to turn each page of life with anticipation and grow through each chapter. But I also wanted to imagine all of these details from my own perception.
When things don’t align to the story in my head it becomes confusing to me. I find myself wondering why they’re upset. We’re on the same page, hell, WE ARE THE BOOK. So, I re-write and re-write and re-write until the fingers in my head fall off. When that doesn’t work, I do what any respectable author would do, I rip it up and burn it.
So, what is love if not what’s in the movies, songs or books? Could there be a secret set of guidelines to go by? Something gambled away by the people I grew up with? I doubt it. I’m thinking, maybe it’s like oxygen. Or like God, ever present and all knowing. Maybe it just surrounds us and isn’t something we find or do. What if, instead, it’s something to just observe in everything and be fully enveloped by. Fuck the rest of it.