Love is MY Battlefield
“No matter who you love it is so simple a feeling, but it’s
everything”
Unlike many women, I am not in love with love. The sad fact is love and I have a complicated
relationship, it’s mostly one where I spend most of my time fighting it and its
affects on me. You see somewhere I
developed this view of loving as being something for the weak. I mean I get why, for someone like me who has
decided that showing any piece of vulnerability is how you get got, it only
makes sense that being in love (one of the MOST vulnerable positions in life)
would be at the top of my “Don’t Try This At Home” list.
I asked myself, “How did I get here?” I mean in a world where so many women are in
love with love how did I become so distrusting of it and what it does to me. Why have I never willingly just dove
headfirst into the waters of Lake
Minnetonka
I remember being young and pretending to be
powerful business woman when I whipped my terry cloth hair back and
forth around my room. I can’t remember ever
pretending to be or wanting to be a bride as a girl… As a teenager I remember
saying that if I ever felt the need to get married I would probably just have a
big birthday party because that was easier and their was no commitment to be
some mans chattel post wedding. ( feminist teenage me was so NOT
down with being held down by a man). I
don’t know where the notion came from but for most of my life I equated loving
a man with being a wimp. There’s no
thugging in loving, and well Imma thug!
Even in the times that I have had a man, I was never been in love enough to do stupid teenage girl in love things. As I got older and
eventually fell in love it was such an anti-climatic thing. I suspect I fell in love with my first love
before I ever even knew it or said it.
We didn’t start traditionally, he also allowed me to express my love
from him with out any of that sappy girl drollness. We were best friends and
still remain good friends today in that always keeping tabs on you ex kinda
way. When it came to love, I was practical
in expression and decisions. I never did
those silly things …like my friends.
Except I did, I just didn’t do them with the same sappy flair, in
hindsight.
So the biggest battle in my life these days has been
learning to let go and let God when it comes to love. After years of living and
many therapy sessions, I have realized that loving someone without abandon
isn’t so bad. The problem is I’ve only been able to allow myself to do this for
small stints. There is a constant battle within me that won’t let me just love
without protecting myself from being in love. I don’t know why, but being in love, like all
in, blindly trust you with my heart love is something that I fear. There is no
control in being in love like that… and as someone who feels the need to be in
control of her person at time, the idea of not being able to control HOW I feel
is just….
You see fear is not my thing so rather than face this fear I
just pretend it doesn’t exist. The problem is love doesn’t go away when
ignored. I mean sometimes I want to love… sometimes I revel in the pureness and
beauty of it, but then while I’m there in that feeling the fear of losing it snaps me back to a place I can control.
“I don’t know much about fighting but I, I know I will fight
for you Hey! Just when I ball up my fist I realize I’m lying right next to you”
I don’t know I’ve never wanted something so much but so
little at the same time as I have than to be able to love. I mean I realize that love and
the state of love makes me a much better woman. I attribute that to my
knowledge that (wo)man was not meant to alone and the fact I have let love win
this battle a time or two. Love softens my edges, as my Auntie Linda said to me
a long time ago. The problem for me is
that I love so hard that I need to be sure…actually surer than sure…I know that’s
not the point. And I’m working on just letting go, but it really is such a
battle for me. The battle to trust some
one with your heart knowing that at some point they will disappoint you, and I don’t
say that from a love hater point of view but a pragmatic one. It’s only human that
you will disappoint people in life even those you love and don’t want to disappoint. But I’m
realizing its more about how you recover from it…that’s the key.
I don’t know I just don’t ever want to become bitter and so
many times I see the loss of love do that to people. I just want to love with
no abandon ACTIVELY and presently. And to be happy about that choice, instead
of worrying how I would recover. To be in love is an action, not merely a state of being. This love struggle is not new from me; I
remember the last time I was here and made the decision to just do it. It really was one of the happiest times in my life.
My only prayer is that if I do this… it turns out
differently than the last time. Amen
Be EZ,
Glam
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