How Do You Know?

I think I know a lot of things...and I do.  I am a pretty intelligent woman.  I read a lot.  I am curious about my world and all the people and beings in it.  I am inquisitive.  But how do I really know anything?

I have been so absolutely sure, so many times, and have been so fucking wrong. So spectacularly W R O N G!

So how do we know, anything, for sure?

I don’t think we can.  We cannot know what will happen next.  I mean, we lull ourselves into a place of complacency believing that the status quo shall forever remain the status quo.  We will remain in these friendships, this life, this job, this relationship...until the end of time.  But we all know, because we all have experienced that nothing lasts. Everything changes.  And usually without warning or our permission or assent.

There are immutable laws.  Gravity coming to my mind first and foremost.  I think all of the people on the planet can agree, we are held to this earth by its gravitational pull.  And gravity applies to each of us equally.  I am sure there are a few wing nuts out there who would argue about and with gravity but taking them out of the equation, we all seem to accept gravity and its role in our life.  We know about gravity...we do not argue with it.

But I wonder, are there other principles, laws of nature and man that are equally applicable, that we do not accept as fact and law?

You know where I am going with this...

Love.  It seems to me to be at least as universal as gravity and yet I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking and believing that is applies to people differently.  And the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that that just simply can’t be true.  Like at all.

Birth and death applies equally.  Although it does seem like there are a fair amount of people who are absolutely one step ahead of death...for decades.  All their behavior should have killed them long ago, yet they are still here, defying the odds and fucking up their lives and those who love them...I digress.

But love, does it apply to each of us like the law of gravity?  Are all of us equally affected and influenced by love?  Are there times when it grabs hold of us and pins us down with a force that mocks gravity?  Are there also times when love lets us loose and we float seemingly untethered to anything that could be called ground?

Are not both love and gravity laws of living?

I mean if we were not held in place on this earth, what would happen to humanity?  If gravity were to simply disappear, we would all float off into outer space and die.  Doesn’t love have a similar effect?  It holds us in place, in check, in good stead and without it, isn’t the result the same?  Death?  I do not believe that any of us could live very long without love in our life.  Some of us get all the different forms of love, while others of us, only get parental love, self love and are underserved on the romantic love portion.  But if all the love was removed from your life, what would become of you?  What would become of humanity?

Well I got sidetracked again, I started off writing about knowledge and now ended up in this examination of the immutability of gravity and love.  But to get back to my topic du jour, how do we know what is love and loving in your life...and how do we know what is not?  And can we ever be absolutely sure?

About gravity? Yes, we can be sure!  About love, fuck I really don’t know.  I have gotten it wrong so very many times, and yet, when you take romance out of the game, I have gotten it right so many times.  How can I be so good at giving and receiving love in all these other areas of my life:  parental, friendship, spiritual and be so fucking bad at romantic?  Why cannot I not seem to apply all the things I do in these others areas of love, to romantic love, and succeed as I have with all the other forms of love?  How can one person be so successful in achieving so much love in her life in every other area except one?

Trauma.  It seems to have blighted my ability and even though I continue to work on its effects and hurdles in my life, it still is an area that I feel blocked, stymied and adrift.  My life feels like I am tethered to the earth in every other form of love, gravity being operable and continuous, but where romantic love is concerned, I am completely untethered and floating in outer space a great deal of the time...

I do not know if I am ever going to afford myself the protective shelter of the gravity of romantic love.  I do think my willingness is a great barrier.  However, I also know that there have been times when I have given it my all and failed nonetheless.  And now this free floating space walk feels the only normal one.  My romantic mission one of data collection and observation.  I feel, often, like I am floating in my little Erinship out there in the dark space, observing all of you from my great distance, sending messages home about what I see, experience and feel in this blog.

Ground control?  This is Major Erin...reporting in.

Again, still...