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leastlikely
Have you even been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...
You give them a piece of you. They don't ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like "maybe we should just be friends" or "how very perceptive" turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.
(Rose Walker in Sandman: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman)
I stumbled across this quotation today - I have not read Sandman yet - and I found it quite fitting.
How is it possible that we manage to find these people? The ones who completely turn our lives upside down. How can two people fit so perfectly that within a few months of their meeting, it's almost as if they had never not known each other? There are about six billion people in the world. I don't believe that there's one "soulmate" for each person, but I believe that if we take advantage of the right opportunities, we can find someone who makes our soul more complete. Surely, in the world, there can be more than one person that fit the missing piece. Most of us fall in love more than once in a lifetime, and I don't think past loves are invalid. I think every relationship fulfills something slightly different. And it might not be 100% complete, in fact it probably won't be. One single person can't be absolutely everything we need, can they?
There are always going to be fights. And fights with loved ones are the worst fights. It's different from fighting with a blood relative, because your family can't leave you. It's different from fighting with an acquaintance, because when you get down to it - how much do you really care about an acquaintance's opinion? Fighting with someone you truly love is the hardest thing to do. You respect them and don't want to seriously hurt their feelings. You want the best for them and want to show them the error of their ways. You love them and don't want them to leave you. Once you start to think that they might be considering leaving you... everything stands out as a possible fight. Everything hurts worse. The stupidest little thing can escalate into a bigger argument than necessary. Why? Paranoia... guilt... the fear of losing our (perceived) One True Love.
I don't think it's the loneliness that scares us. Although humans are social beings, we know how to be on our own. That's something we can deal with. I think the fear is that we can't find another person to love and to love us in return. We've been hurt in the past, so we're hesitant to allow ourselves to be vulnerable again. We're scared of putting ourselves in a position to be hurt, so to protect ourselves from pain we avoid relationships. We think we're only safe if we don't give in, if we don't open up, if we don't feel, if we don't love. That couldn't be further from the truth.
Recent experiences have led me to believe that if we don't allow ourselves to be vulnerable once in a while, if we're constantly sheltering ourselves from pain, we're going to miss out on a lot of life. Pain is a fact of life. That's what one of my tattoos means to me. It's cherry blossoms (which traditionally represent the beauty and brevity of life) with the words "ngi ne themba" ("I have hope"). I know that life is short and it's painful... there's no avoiding either of these facts. Of course, there's no way to escape death. I've come to accept that it's going to happen sooner or later (though I hope it's later!). And we are bound to get hurt and to hurt others. We may not mean it or expect it, but it happens. But I have hope that I will always find a way to make life beautiful. One of the most beautiful things you can ever participate in is love.
So I encourage you: Be vulnerable. Let yourself feel pain. Find beauty in the experience and grow from it. Above all? Love. Please, love. It makes the pain so much easier to bear and ultimately, in my opinion, is a surefire way to experience all the beauty life has to offer.
I've strayed a bit from the original quote, but I don't care because this is what I wanted to say.
ALSO: please don't think I'm encouraging staying in unhealthy relationships! I am just saying... love with all you have. Letting yourself be vulnerable is NOT the same thing as letting yourself be abused. In general though - in safe, healthy relationships as well as outside of relationships, just in life in general... LOVE. Never stop loving with all your heart, mind, body, and soul. Let yourself feel everything. Life is awesome.
You give them a piece of you. They don't ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like "maybe we should just be friends" or "how very perceptive" turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.
(Rose Walker in Sandman: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman)
I stumbled across this quotation today - I have not read Sandman yet - and I found it quite fitting.
How is it possible that we manage to find these people? The ones who completely turn our lives upside down. How can two people fit so perfectly that within a few months of their meeting, it's almost as if they had never not known each other? There are about six billion people in the world. I don't believe that there's one "soulmate" for each person, but I believe that if we take advantage of the right opportunities, we can find someone who makes our soul more complete. Surely, in the world, there can be more than one person that fit the missing piece. Most of us fall in love more than once in a lifetime, and I don't think past loves are invalid. I think every relationship fulfills something slightly different. And it might not be 100% complete, in fact it probably won't be. One single person can't be absolutely everything we need, can they?
There are always going to be fights. And fights with loved ones are the worst fights. It's different from fighting with a blood relative, because your family can't leave you. It's different from fighting with an acquaintance, because when you get down to it - how much do you really care about an acquaintance's opinion? Fighting with someone you truly love is the hardest thing to do. You respect them and don't want to seriously hurt their feelings. You want the best for them and want to show them the error of their ways. You love them and don't want them to leave you. Once you start to think that they might be considering leaving you... everything stands out as a possible fight. Everything hurts worse. The stupidest little thing can escalate into a bigger argument than necessary. Why? Paranoia... guilt... the fear of losing our (perceived) One True Love.
I don't think it's the loneliness that scares us. Although humans are social beings, we know how to be on our own. That's something we can deal with. I think the fear is that we can't find another person to love and to love us in return. We've been hurt in the past, so we're hesitant to allow ourselves to be vulnerable again. We're scared of putting ourselves in a position to be hurt, so to protect ourselves from pain we avoid relationships. We think we're only safe if we don't give in, if we don't open up, if we don't feel, if we don't love. That couldn't be further from the truth.
Recent experiences have led me to believe that if we don't allow ourselves to be vulnerable once in a while, if we're constantly sheltering ourselves from pain, we're going to miss out on a lot of life. Pain is a fact of life. That's what one of my tattoos means to me. It's cherry blossoms (which traditionally represent the beauty and brevity of life) with the words "ngi ne themba" ("I have hope"). I know that life is short and it's painful... there's no avoiding either of these facts. Of course, there's no way to escape death. I've come to accept that it's going to happen sooner or later (though I hope it's later!). And we are bound to get hurt and to hurt others. We may not mean it or expect it, but it happens. But I have hope that I will always find a way to make life beautiful. One of the most beautiful things you can ever participate in is love.
So I encourage you: Be vulnerable. Let yourself feel pain. Find beauty in the experience and grow from it. Above all? Love. Please, love. It makes the pain so much easier to bear and ultimately, in my opinion, is a surefire way to experience all the beauty life has to offer.
I've strayed a bit from the original quote, but I don't care because this is what I wanted to say.
ALSO: please don't think I'm encouraging staying in unhealthy relationships! I am just saying... love with all you have. Letting yourself be vulnerable is NOT the same thing as letting yourself be abused. In general though - in safe, healthy relationships as well as outside of relationships, just in life in general... LOVE. Never stop loving with all your heart, mind, body, and soul. Let yourself feel everything. Life is awesome.
