Love is confusing

Well this past weekend in the 'burgh went pretty well with Pete overall; except for the unexpected trip to the hospital. More on that in a bit.

Pete is a writer---I love that about him. He writes in a journal just like me, he writes long emails just like me, and he does poems and essays too. In fact, he gave me a copy of the essay he wrote to 3 of his chicky-women "friends-with-benefits" on Valentines Day. The title of it was, "Why I hate the word LOVE." He discusses how confusing that word is, and how it can too often contribute to the END of a relationship rather than be all that love SHOULD be and how everybody has differing definitions of it, etc.

A rather amusing thing about it, is that he didn't expect his 3 vanilla chickies to react in such a haughty, upset way about it...especially when he signed it the same for each chick, "I love you, Pete." LOLOLOLOL Both "Vixen" and I looked at him like, "DUHHH, of COURSE they are gonna freak out about it, you gave it to them on friggin' VALENTINES DAY for cripes' sake, ya stooge!" And that "I love you" signature is kinda like a slap in the face after being told that love is confusing and doesn't mean the same thing to HIM as they want it to, etc.

But the essay itself is very revealing about where he's at in terms of relationship issues. The man is a connundrum of chaotic and confusing contradictions. I find that very endearing about him though. After all, NOBODY really understands love. So I felt it was something I should answer with my own thoughts about this mysterious thing called "Love."

I felt some of that towards him this weekend. He scared me to death; after a hot shower he came into the bedroom shivering uncontrollably, his teeth chattering. I took his temperature and it was 103.4. I told him to check his blood sugar, thinking he may be having anaphalactic shock or something...but it was 133, which is good. I told him to get dressed, and took him immediately to the emergency room. We spent the whole day in the hospital yesterday, and I thought, "if he dies right now, I'll never know what love is or can be." At one point, I started to cry. I told him it reminded me of when my grandmother was in the hospital, dying, but part of it was really feeling that "I finally found a guy I could really love...and if he dies, I will be totally lost."

Turns out the bladder infection he had a month ago never really went completely away, and it's back with a vengeance. They gave him an IV of antibiotics, and I put my head in his lap until the medication was finished. I felt so close to him, so warm and safe and secure...even in the midst of the unknown scarey health mystery that threatens to end everything. I made him promise me he'll take better care of himself, and NO NOOKY WITH OTHER CHICKIES until it's completely gone and healed. (We'll see if he can do that or not, my bet is probably not). He did promise to take better care of himself for me though, and I'm holding him to that promise.

Here is what I sent him about my thoughts of love...

LOVE IS A MYTH

Hollywood. The media. Society as a whole. All of these things brainwash the public with the myth of "love." We are all taught at a very early age---as babies---that love is something you are entitled to, you'll be given so much unconditional love by everyone around you, it will be your cocoon for the next few years. And then you turn 5 or 6 and you become more independent, you start to pull away from mommy or daddy a little bit, to explore your own self for awhile...and that's when you learn that love is conditional based upon your behavior. If you're good, and polite, and do everything they tell you to do, you will receive praise and love. If you're bad, though, you learn that you will be punished. When that happens, you don't feel loved at all. By the time you're a teenager, you learn that love is an ever-changing thing, from those people you once believed loved you unconditionally. Some days they claim to love you, but then forbid you from hanging out with your friends, or tell you that you're grounded for a week because you didn't get an A+ in your English class.

No wonder when we become adults, we are confused by what this thing called Love really is. We've received mixed messages about it all our lives. Nobody, not even adults, knows how to teach their younger generations about what love really is because they themselves don't really know. Everybody, it seems, has their own definitions of love. So for every human being, it is completely different. There's parental love, sibling love, best friend love, favorite pet love, even teacher/student love. Each kind of love is completely different from the others. Growing up with so many different types of love, can cause chaos in our hearts and souls for many decades trying to figure it out. Love is, really, a myth. It was dreamed up by those churchy, self-righteous, holier-than-thou people who wanted to give the illusion that if you're super GOOD all the time, love is the ultimate reward you will receive, both from God above, and from the person you spend your life with. It's also a manipulation tactic of the government so you get a tax-break if you claim love for someone and marry.

But, a myth does have some basis in truth, though. My thoughts about love are: it's rare, it's elusive, it's not quite all that you thought, but sometimes it's even more than what you expect. It's an ever-changing cloud that can turn silver and bright in sunlight or dark and stormy. Love, like everything else in life, is also what you make of it. It's not something that simply "happens" immediately, (all the "love at first sight" stuff makes me cringe), but if you find someone you "click" with, and feel compatible with, then love can make your heart swell, it can make you feel proud and happy to be with that person, it can make you feel that you love who YOU are when you're with that person, and you love how YOU feel when you're with him or her. Love feeds the soul in ways that nothing else can.

Love should, in my opinion, be an equal give and take. Not 60/40, but 50/50 straight up. And that means, you give a little, you take a little, you make an effort, you work at it. Love is not just going to magically appear out of nowhere and make your life easy, it's not going to make your life better unless you take responsibility for your part in it. And that means compromising, being flexible, learning to choose the arguments you might have, rather than making everything a power struggle. Learning to resolve things, to communicate, to discuss problems and feelings as often as possible, rather than to say nothing and let them fester into a cancerous growth that leads to an ending.

Love is like a plant. If you want it to grow and flourish, then you have to accept the responsibility of it, because love takes work, effort, lots of thinking, lots of planning, lots of elbow grease, determination, strength, and courage. You become a team---just you and your sweetie, against the entire world. You cheer each other on when times are tough. You pull together and make sacrifices. You fight your way through health problems, together. You fight your way through financial problems, together. You never lose sight of the fact that you are the other person's rock in this ever-changing and eroding world around us. You have to be strong for that person when he or she is weak. You have to learn to say, "I am sad, please comfort me." Or, "I feel angry at you right now, give me some space." And both people in a relationship have to learn how to LISTEN to each other---even between the lines sometimes.

Otherwise, if you can't do these things, love will fail.

Love is a decision, yes. But it is also accompanied with the mysterious chemistry, pheremones, compatibility and yes, even infatuation. The trick is, to see beyond the initial infatuation, to see the reality of it, not just the silly giddy romantic first months of it. If it's real, if it's truly meant to be, then it will grow and flourish and progress in a healthy time frame, in a healthy way, with lots of nurturing, caring, and trust. That is what Love means to me. I've never felt it for anyone---except once, in my mid-20's. But it was not reciprocated. I've closed down that part of me for many years, having been hurt too much. I tend to push people away if they get too close, too fast. I play the "Come here, go away" game, wanting love so bad it hurts, but afraid of BEING hurt again by the same love.

Contradiction goes hand in hand with love sometimes. But if it's real, if it's true, those who are in it, can see past that. Those who are in it, and want it to work, will be able to cast aside all others who may distract from that much-needed focus that it will take to succeed at it. That does not mean that love means monogamy at all times, until death do you part. I reject that part of the myth, because as history has proven, it doesn't work very well. Nobody is perfect, nobody can go a lifetime without making mistakes. But it does mean, forgiving each other for being human and wanting to be with another, but knowing in your heart that he or she will return to you to ask forgiveness and to be loved again, despite mistakes or despite infidelities that mean nothing.

If you want to keep that person in your life, and share your love with him or her for a very long time, then you have to accept and take responsibility for keeping them HAPPY in every aspect of the relationship---supportive, encouraging, helping whenever possible, and pleasing in the bedroom especially---because whatever you won't do for them in the bedroom, somebody else will be waiting in the wings to step up and take on that task, whether you like it or not. So eliminate that possibility from ruining the love you feel for that person, and just do whatever that person needs you to do for them. Try it. Set aside your own fears or feelings that stand in the way. Take the leap of faith. That is, after all, what love is all about. A leap of faith. If you take the leap together, if it's an equal decision, if it's a give and take, if it's rewarding, if it sparks you and makes you happy, then it will be the most wonderful experience of a lifetime.
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...Ok.........maybe I'm naiive, but that's what I think about love, after having seen a failed divorce with my parents, twice with my mom, and dating vanilla idiots who had no clue whatsoever about love or even how to handle my kinky side. It comes from years of observation of other people's relationships, as an outsider looking in. Maybe it's not altogether "right," but it's the best I can do at this point, having never experienced marriage or love before. So for what it's worth, I think it's worth giving a try, it's worth taking the leap of faith, and most of the time, even if it fails eventually, while you're in it, it's definitely worth the effort.

----Sassy Girl