These two words pretty much sum up my love life.
This is how I feel about the whole sordid tale. A lot of flash, a lot of potential, but really, ending up with just a false alarm. Love...but not really.
I will start this post with acknowledging that it is likely me. I am the common denominator after all...
But I am pretty interested in the fact that abiding love seems to be something that is just not meant for me...when exactly do you just give up even looking?
Perhaps I am not built for it, and it is a cosmic joke that I even care about it anymore. Fifty years of seeking and little to show for it.
It pains me to admit that I have spent the time that I have dating only to realize that of all the effort, I never really had anything that was worth keeping. This does not mean that I haven’t dated some amazing people, I have. But the common thread on their side of the street is that they have never really been willing to show up. My life long lesson is that men, leave. Or stay but make the terms so hard that I wish they would leave. Sometimes they stay but leave. Living under the same roof but wholly not seeing me, or my efforts, contributions or person at all. And on my side of the street, believing that the limited efforts they made were all I deserved.
I have been accused recently of being repetitive in my writing. To that I say, “Um, yes...” I have been and continue to try to live this life, sort through it and glean out some meaning, sustenance and substance to the ever changing landscape of love and living. That is by nature a repetitive process. I am not writing about algebra that has an easy solution, I am writing about love and living and that is messy, repetitive and ever shifting. I am also writing about emotion. Real heartfelt emotion that I am trying to not censor or audit but give it to you straight. Forgive me that I haven’t been able to just get right to the point...
I suppose we could just take the whole of my writing and chalk it up to self-indulged drivel...except that the whole reason I am telling you all of this is because I know that I am not alone in my thoughts, feelings, longings, pain. I share it to let you know that there is someone else out here who is just as fucked up as you think you are.
I am perplexed by how something that others seem to be able to do easily and without too much drama, I find so incredibly hard and impossible. Other people fall in love all the time. They change the course of their lives, move across continents, share children and finances. They willing combine their lives with the life of another and make a commitment to be there for them and then actually show up. This completely and totally baffles me...on both sides.
How is it that one comes to love another so much that they are willing to do this? How do they get out of their own way? What makes the person that they are doing it for seem like a good bet? How do they get over their multitude of issues and just dive in with another, together at the same time?
I have no fucking clue. In fact, as the Mansbatical nears the end, I would say that I am perhaps more confused than I was when I started. I thought that I wanted to fall in love and make a commitment but now, almost a year later, I find myself less willing to give up the life that I have and more cynical about love and commitment. How did this happen?
The last year has been good to me. Being alone and uncommitted has become its own reward. So much so, that I can’t imagine giving it up for anyone. The man that would add more than he took, mythical and fabled.
I still believe in love...for other people. I am just not sure it is for me. While that pains me to admit, it pains me far less than it used to. Which I am not sure is progress or regress. I guess time will tell.
I am quite sure that I believe that love is what makes this life worthwhile. I see couples who add to each others’ lives and the commitment that they made to each other enriches their lives. I see a lot of other people trapped in a downward spiral that results in, at best at stalemate and at worst, a tornado of pain, misery and loneliness.
My most intimate truth is that if I found someone that lit my soul on fire, I would open wide my life and grant them access. If I found that elusive love that hits you square in the chest and holds you there, I would cherish it. But after a lifetime of near misses, I am not even sure that I would recognize it anymore. I have so come to mistrust any type of connection at all. They have all become, just another false alarm.
There is a Smith song that I loved when I was younger, I quote it here because it perfectly describes my sentiments...
Last night I dreamt
That somebody loved me
No hope - but no harm
Just another false alarm
Last night I felt
Real arms around me
No hope - no harm
Just another false alarm
So, tell me how long
Before the last one?
And tell me how long
Before the right one?
This story is old - I KNOW
But it goes on
Yep, that about sums it up...Thanks Morrissey, I feel your pain.
