For a long time I asked myself "what the hell is wrong with me?...."
I am a man that has struggled with the idea of conventional love for a long time. This love that dictates our life-mate and that individual we are supposed to now answer to. This love that gets us up into flight and at 50,000 feet thinks it funny to run out of gas bringing us to a fiery, painful death. A bit too morbid? Am I too down on love for you? How can a poet that speaks with such eloquence on the virtues of love be so pessimistic about it? If these are your questions, then you need to re-read the first sentence again. I am speaking about "conventional love" and that my friends is not pure love.
This is the love everyone is conditioned to believe in. A love that requires something be done. A love that requires two people in love to say "this must be fate" and because it is "fate" they no longer have any say in the matter. They must now be together. This is that love that becomes co-mingled with men's rules and as such...becomes tainted. It ceases to be pure and is now turned into an idea based on a principal with no room for error. That's when it becomes "work". Work is something you get paid for and love is not a commodity to trade. It is to be given freely with no return on investment. This, my friends, is where we screw it up...guilt by association.
We place unrealistic expectations on love when these expectations involve humans. Where the expectation should be placed on the person, we unfairly place it on this mystical power called love that is supposed to somehow turn us into better people. Love does not make decisions...we do. Love does not create contracts...we do. Love does not break contracts...we do. Pure love is selfless surrender and that is all it is. It cannot be confused with greed though often it is and it cannot be confused with lust...though often it is. It does not ask for anything in return and this is why most people find themselves confused. This is something, we as humans, in this "me and mine" society cannot wrap our heads around any longer. It is the hardest thing to find in this age of "self" where most duty-bound sacrifice is met with a terse "f-that!!!". When you hear the phrase "If you love me..." think long and hard what comes next. Use love as a manipulation tactic and it ceases to be all you claimed it to be. Let that one marinade for awhile...
I believe in relationships and what they should mean. In fact, the best relationships are written standing on a foundation of love but relationships require work and they, in fact, must have a return on investment. It is a contract between two people that find themselves compatible. Agreements and rules are necessary in order for them to work. They are facilitated by love but not enforced by love. People enforce the rules within the relationship yet be aware that people are fallible. They will at one point or another, violate those rules. Breaking the contract and sowing seeds of mistrust is not a by-product of love but of our own humanity. This is why we continue to love them even in failure because pure love as opposed to attraction or compatibility is a constant. Love gives us the will to forgive the infraction and continue within the contract but the choice remains ours. We decide...not love. Yet because love is made the reason for said contract, it is easy to blame by association for the pain the violation has incurred. That is a serious error. Love is not to blame because love had nothing to do with you violating your agreement...that was your doing. Love tried to stop you but for most people, sadly, that is never enough. Character does that my friends and if your mate is lacking in that most important quality, all the love in the world will not stop him or her from failing you. I've seen too many run away from ever loving again for "what it could mean". They stay clear of love because of the scars they carry from a past relationship. It was so at one time but for me, that is no longer the case...
After two beautiful relationships, each one handing all parties our own set of beautiful scars, I would not take back my love for any amount of money. One relationship was near perfect, the other was not as perfect but both uniquely held my love in such ways that I remember the moments of loves' manifestation as moments of pure beauty. Moments I would readily relive with them if given the privilege. A purity of passion and fire that was beyond this realm of flesh and blood. Words lack the expression that kind of purity invokes and today, moments like these...are all I seek. I have had the privilege of experiencing this with others that I found worthy of such a thing and asked nothing from them in return simply because that is the nature of the experience. Now lest one should think me loose...I can assure you that they would not take more than two hands to count. I could wait for the perfect relationship but I have found that for me...there is no such thing. Most will settle for "close enough" and that's OK but as of today I feel almost compelled to stay clear from attaining any new scars because the ones I bear are more than enough to sustain my wisdom. I live, I love and I do my best to remove humanity's failings from the equation. I make no investment and I require none because without this, I find no disappointment. I seek none to own and none to be owned by. Now you may call it a defense mechanism but I have lived a life of a thousand men and I am content to love without all the trappings of ownership. Experience has chosen this road for me. It has drawn out the poet and the lover in me and today...I am who I am.
So I say for those without love...let it overtake you, it is the last pure thing in this world as yet to go silent. For those with no scars...get some, I am thankful for the wisdom they have given me. For those that have been hurt...don't blame love, a humans failure is their own... Be wise in all your dealings and remember..."love may be blind but she is never stupid"...
For a long time I asked myself "what the hell is wrong with me?". "Why can't I be in a relationship?" I can finally answer...nothing.
~MAA
Miss me?...well I'm back with a whole lot more shit to say ;-)
