Love. We talk about it a lot. Like, a lot. I’ve spent my whole life trying to figure it out, and get it. Trying to win it, trying to earn it. Almost as though it’s oxygen. A lifetime of forcing. Either twisting myself inside out to make someone love me, or by forcing myself to love them before I felt ready because it seemed expected. Performing our perfected dances to gain that thing we’ve been told tells us that we’re worthy. That we’re valuable. That we’re enough.
It always felt romantic to rush. To lose my head in all the amazing feels. To jump straight in and just hope we could somehow not drown. Yet ending up angry that our performances would eventually stop working.
All of my relationships have been like that. Frustration. Chaos. Struggle. Combined with enough good times to act as a dangling carrot to keep trying.
Why did I rush so much?
I realised today it’s because I believed love was finite. A strange paradox of trying to make someone stay, mixed with the belief that it had to be sealed and dealed before they had reason to leave. It’s truly exhausting trying to maintain a fear like that.
I don’t carry that belief anymore. It’s not intensity or time that determines the solidity of anything. Maybe it’s intention and mindfulness. Maybe it’s making choices. Maybe it’s something else.
What would it feel like to allow love to unfold as a curiosity, instead of trying to force it?
What if, instead of believing it’s finite, I allowed myself to believe that I could share in a love that could last a lifetime simply just because it didn’t have to look a certain way to be love?
What if I surrendered to the unknown in a way that finally didn’t include abandoning myself, or hoping the other would abandon themselves, to be there?
I’m tired of assessing feelings, monitoring thoughts, worrying about outcomes.
What if we could just look at each other and say, “I like you… let’s keep hanging out.” What if instead of asking “what do you want?” we asked “what makes you feel loved?” What if we saw our relationships through the lens of kintsugi, so often spoken about in these realms: finding beauty in imperfection, transience, and the wear of time. It signifies that breakage and repair are part of the history of an object, making it more beautiful and valuable. What if we became alchemists together?
I don’t want to bulldoze my way through life anymore, love included. I don’t want to try to force someone to love me. I don’t want to perform anymore. I don’t need that validation anymore. And I don’t want to feel forced to love another. I don’t want someone trying to prove to me that they’re worthy or loveable.
I simply want to unfold together.
To allow love to naturally seep into the spaces we create between us.
I know places we can go, babe
I know places we can go, babe
The high won't fade here, babe
No, the high won't hurt here, babe
I know places we can go, babe
I know places we can go, babe
Where the highs won't bring you down, babe
No, the highs won't hurt you there, babe
Don't ask me when, but ask me why
Don't ask me how, but ask me where
There is a road, there is a way
There is a place, there is a place
I know places we can go, babe
Coming home, come unfold, babe
And the high won't fade here, babe
No, the high won't hurt here, babe
So, come lay
And wait
Now won't you lay
And wait, wait on me?
I know places we can go, babe
Coming home, come unfold, babe
I know places we can go, babe
Coming home, come unfold, babe