116 - it's not that simple
love is a really curious thing.
it'll drive you to madness if you let it, and it's also the most trustworthy cure for that same madness. it's life's oldest, biggest, and most enjoyable scam.
i don't know exactly how everyone else experiences love, although i know at least a couple people who express it in ways i deeply relate to.
for me, it's an instinct more than a feeling. i struggle to describe why i love someone, or how i know that i do. i just do. it was always inevitable.
and it has always pulled me in impossible directions. loves conflicting with each other, the potential and the hope here versus the supposed stability there.
i am deeply flawed. i have been hurt many times. i love to play the game again and again, and so far i almost always lose. love and loneliness have become two sides of the same coin, in a way i know isn't healthy.
nevertheless, it's how i experience it. i'm working on it, i hope to fix it, i know i deserve better than the situations i put myself into.
but it's never that simple, is it?
sometimes you're not ready to let go of the love, even if it usually lands as loneliness these days. sometimes you can't help but cling to the softness you crave, even if it's never going to sustain you.
i keep seeing the concept of 'limerence' cross my social media feeds. to badly summarise;
limerence is the mental state of being madly in love or intensely infatuated, when reciprocation of the feeling is uncertain... characterised by intrusive thoughts and idealisation of the loved one, typically with a desire for reciprocation... accompanied by feelings of ecstasy or despair, depending on whether one's feelings seem to be reciprocated or not.... research indicates that the early stage of intense romantic love resembles addiction...
it feels much too familiar. it feels much too familiar.
i have never known how to define myself in the absence of others. i don't know how to value my actions or accomplishments without the context of someone else's praise or disappointment.
the people i love provide those focal points. my morals shift, my attitudes change, my entire personality becomes a mirror of some aspect of them. it's a very autistic trait. apparently it's also characteristic of c-ptsd, and a childhood lacking in emotional availability. i never thought mine was that bad, but what do i really know about it?
once i love someone, i will chase and chase and chase until they catch me or until i run myself dead, like the dog following a car straight into the path of an oncoming truck.
but it's not as easily killable as that. over and over again, i drag these shattered bones back up and let myself be thrown around and run over, again and again and again.
i know its stupid. i know i deserve better. i know i should stop.
but it's not that simple. how do you make yourself let go of love? could you wrench yourself away and escape their orbit, knowing you'll spend the next million years drifting aimlessly in the void until something catches you again?
would anything have really changed, once you're caught again?
but i know i deserve better. perhaps more importantly, i know i can become better, freed of this context. i don't really like who i am in love, at least not in this love. it's pulled me in all the wrong directions.
and worse still, i know where to find better. i know exactly where i can go, where i'll find a place to grow better. there'll be a bit of endless void between here and there, but even the endless void isn't actually infinite. nothing is.
it's just really not that simple.
i'm not ready to let go. i'm scared of losing myself for a little while. i'm scared of all the things that might never be if i let us drift away.
but i don't think i'm going to be strong enough to hold on much longer, whether i want to let go or not. my arms are tired. you can only subdivide a soul so far.
it's not that simple. but it might have to be.
xx