To lighten the burden...An ode to love
Instead of letting my mind zig-zag like crazy through cycles of hysterical fear and irrational thoughts coated in rationality, I thought I'd divulge in what now seems like the only way I know how to. I've been thinking a lot - perhaps starting on my plane ride from Shanghai to Chicago, which marked the first time I didn't sleep for 90% of a trans-Atlantic flight. And it's the usual suspects: love, family, friendship, career.
We've been together officially 15 months, unofficially 17 months. Yet I rarely speak of him. People offhandedly ask, "what's he like?" And I don't know what to say - introduce him with a skeletal sketch, a life resume if you will, and explain why he was the winning candidate for my heart? I know Duke people expect the former, and a certain bff from high school more or less asked me the latter. What I really want to say is...
* Love is not single. It is married to fear and as one grows, so does the other. Not fear that he won't love me like this one day, or I won't love him like this one day - this was something I struggled with towards the beginning of our relationship because I tried too hard to fit what we had into the shape I've been cultured to believe love takes form in. And with all those preconceived notions of love came distrust and insecurities as well. I would be interested to know just what the rate of cheating is, but I do think the media rarely portrays true love (romantic comedies where the leading actors gawk at each other with infatuation in their eyes do not count) that doesn't at some point become unraveled by lies, time, or the burdens of mundane life. I wish there were more examples of sustainable love, even if it takes many forms, from infatuation to passion to companionship. So a little ounce of me didn't want to talk about my relationship and love because I didn't want to retrospectively hate myself for being so stupid in believing love exists and can last. I didn't want to read journal entries and think, how can fake feelings seem so real? how can I feel again and again and label it with something as serious as love? A very big part of me did not trust him - not because of who he was. A little because I didn't and perhaps still don't love myself enough to believe, truly, soul-wrenchingly believe, I deserve unconditional love from anyone but my parents. Largely because I honestly do not trust men - young men running around the world, charged on their libidos.
I can't precisely say how I got over my distrust and my jealousies but his patience, his genuine, undeniably devoted love certainly helps. The fact that he can gaze at me, piercing into my entire being, and wonder, be absolutely bewildered, how I don't look at myself and see everything he sees. Objectively, I will never be the most beautiful, the smartest, the skinniest, the most fabulous by whatever criteria. And so rational me tells feelings me that if I believed anything but, then I'm delusional.
A little subjectivity never hurt anyone, especially because I don't sense narcissism being a potential destination for me. So each day, each time he tells me just how wonderful I am, I start to believe it a little bit more. I need to hear it not because I've some huge ego that needs to be fed, but because each time, his words are like a drop of water, and eventually it will penetrate the stones I've erected to protect myself. It's a lifetime project.
Back to the marriage between fear + love: I fear not having enough time with him, and even a lifetime is not enough. So love is what made me realize and fear human mortality. We've been doing long distance for quite some time and the only thing that makes the distance tolerable is knowing, someday, we won't have to be apart. My greatest wish, albeit a very selfish, unambitious one, is to leave this world before he does. My fear is that I won't.
** Why significant others are called our "better half" was sort of an epiphany for me. He really is. He's calm, at ease, patient, comforting, encouraging in ways I cannot be, during times I cannot be.
*** He embraces the woman I am - to him, my jealousy is not the result of me being a psychotic bitch, they are a sign I love so much; to him, my at-times irrational rage does not make me a lunatic, I simply feel, and to feel is not abnormal; to him my insecurities are not a nuisance, instead, they make him sad that I didn't feel loved enough and I deserve to feel that way. The result? I have a safe space where I don't feel jealous or enraged or as insecure.
I still can't give a textbook definition, a check-off list, of what love is. Perhaps because it escapes the realm of words. Perhaps because love is like snowflakes, one moment stringed together with another in perfect continuity, and each moment is the same because it is love after all, but each moment is also unique because it's here, then it's gone. Perhaps because love's defining quality is that it is constantly changing with the world while constantly changing our worlds, so it cannot be stuffed into some stiff space and slapped with the label, "love." Whatever it is, I sometimes forget to be grateful. And I am. Grateful in a on-my-knees, tears in my eyes, hands enclosed with hope sorta way.
And I'm glad I finally got to say all of this because I don't get to at Duke. I miss normal, high school friends who understood that people, women especially, feel things intensely and need to talk about it. I wish people here weren't so cynical and bitter about love that mentioning those four words gets a similar response to that of blurting out a certain 4-letter word (rhymes with muck) in elementary school.
We've been together officially 15 months, unofficially 17 months. Yet I rarely speak of him. People offhandedly ask, "what's he like?" And I don't know what to say - introduce him with a skeletal sketch, a life resume if you will, and explain why he was the winning candidate for my heart? I know Duke people expect the former, and a certain bff from high school more or less asked me the latter. What I really want to say is...
* Love is not single. It is married to fear and as one grows, so does the other. Not fear that he won't love me like this one day, or I won't love him like this one day - this was something I struggled with towards the beginning of our relationship because I tried too hard to fit what we had into the shape I've been cultured to believe love takes form in. And with all those preconceived notions of love came distrust and insecurities as well. I would be interested to know just what the rate of cheating is, but I do think the media rarely portrays true love (romantic comedies where the leading actors gawk at each other with infatuation in their eyes do not count) that doesn't at some point become unraveled by lies, time, or the burdens of mundane life. I wish there were more examples of sustainable love, even if it takes many forms, from infatuation to passion to companionship. So a little ounce of me didn't want to talk about my relationship and love because I didn't want to retrospectively hate myself for being so stupid in believing love exists and can last. I didn't want to read journal entries and think, how can fake feelings seem so real? how can I feel again and again and label it with something as serious as love? A very big part of me did not trust him - not because of who he was. A little because I didn't and perhaps still don't love myself enough to believe, truly, soul-wrenchingly believe, I deserve unconditional love from anyone but my parents. Largely because I honestly do not trust men - young men running around the world, charged on their libidos.
I can't precisely say how I got over my distrust and my jealousies but his patience, his genuine, undeniably devoted love certainly helps. The fact that he can gaze at me, piercing into my entire being, and wonder, be absolutely bewildered, how I don't look at myself and see everything he sees. Objectively, I will never be the most beautiful, the smartest, the skinniest, the most fabulous by whatever criteria. And so rational me tells feelings me that if I believed anything but, then I'm delusional.
A little subjectivity never hurt anyone, especially because I don't sense narcissism being a potential destination for me. So each day, each time he tells me just how wonderful I am, I start to believe it a little bit more. I need to hear it not because I've some huge ego that needs to be fed, but because each time, his words are like a drop of water, and eventually it will penetrate the stones I've erected to protect myself. It's a lifetime project.
Back to the marriage between fear + love: I fear not having enough time with him, and even a lifetime is not enough. So love is what made me realize and fear human mortality. We've been doing long distance for quite some time and the only thing that makes the distance tolerable is knowing, someday, we won't have to be apart. My greatest wish, albeit a very selfish, unambitious one, is to leave this world before he does. My fear is that I won't.
** Why significant others are called our "better half" was sort of an epiphany for me. He really is. He's calm, at ease, patient, comforting, encouraging in ways I cannot be, during times I cannot be.
*** He embraces the woman I am - to him, my jealousy is not the result of me being a psychotic bitch, they are a sign I love so much; to him, my at-times irrational rage does not make me a lunatic, I simply feel, and to feel is not abnormal; to him my insecurities are not a nuisance, instead, they make him sad that I didn't feel loved enough and I deserve to feel that way. The result? I have a safe space where I don't feel jealous or enraged or as insecure.
I still can't give a textbook definition, a check-off list, of what love is. Perhaps because it escapes the realm of words. Perhaps because love is like snowflakes, one moment stringed together with another in perfect continuity, and each moment is the same because it is love after all, but each moment is also unique because it's here, then it's gone. Perhaps because love's defining quality is that it is constantly changing with the world while constantly changing our worlds, so it cannot be stuffed into some stiff space and slapped with the label, "love." Whatever it is, I sometimes forget to be grateful. And I am. Grateful in a on-my-knees, tears in my eyes, hands enclosed with hope sorta way.
And I'm glad I finally got to say all of this because I don't get to at Duke. I miss normal, high school friends who understood that people, women especially, feel things intensely and need to talk about it. I wish people here weren't so cynical and bitter about love that mentioning those four words gets a similar response to that of blurting out a certain 4-letter word (rhymes with muck) in elementary school.