Loving You

Lost

Endless sights I long to see, a starry sky comes greeting me. 

If oceans part our destined love, I’ll sail the seas and fly afar. 

Her eyes have this kind of sparkle, a glow that I adore.

A glimpse of your soul, dear, I’ll cherish forevermore.

I always wondered if I would ever get to feel love again. The butterflies in your stomach, the tightness you feel when talking to them, the worried nervousness that makes you act like a silly child. Such was a thing of dreams and fantasy, or reserved for the young, untainted soul who has yet to be disappointed by how human another can be. It is a tragedy to  learn that everyone is as confused and flawed as oneself. We are all just children trying to figure out the world, teddy bear in one hand, tear-stained blanket on the other.

I've loved people before, the joy of crushes, and the sorrows of heartbreak. Through all the souls I have gotten the chance to acquaint myself with, none really set the mold quite like the first. She wasn't remarkable in the way people describe great loves. She was just first, and being first meant she arrived before I had any walls up, before I knew enough to be careful. When it ended, I didn't know what to do with the shape it had left behind. Something closed up in me that had never been closed before, and the adolescent stumbling out the other side was a little less whole than the one who had walked in.

Compounded with the pressure of performance from my caregivers, I struggled with the thought of being able to love myself unconditionally. It was only recently that I noticed these tendencies, and such explains the very nature of why I acted the way I did after that very first breakup. Relationship after relationship, I sought after love, one that could fill the void in my heart. When one is liked romantically, they may feel invincible. To be liked is to accept who one is, not what they do or what they can achieve. One can only imagine how the adolescent in me felt, love-starved and insecure, when presented with such fortune. The ecstasy was intoxicating, as I found myself chasing.

As years pass, the heavier life felt. The hopeful child slowly grows into a cynical adult, smarter yet sadder. “Love is a thing for children”, he tells himself, “I can never love nor feel love again”. Relationships were a pain, struggles that inevitably came to a disappointing end. Yet, something in me did not want to give up on love, romance, and fantasy. A spark that was filled with hope, igniting my passions every now and then.

Broken

A lighthouse that rests on a hill, gracing over ship’s embark.

She illuminates my world, the light that carries me through the dark.

Oh, how sweet your words, I love its taste.

Nothing could ever pull me from your embrace.

I decided to pursue something serious with someone I could tolerate. “Love shouldn’t be easy”, I thought. After years of avoiding commitment out of the fear of getting hurt, the idea to re-learn love came to mind. Perhaps I needed to learn how to love once again, through intimacy, deeper bonds, and proper conversation. Perhaps this love I so desire isn’t one to be gained, but to be learnt and achieved. To stick around even when it’s hard. To speak even when the heart shuts its mouth. To show restraint even when the mind edges on rage. To love, even when it’s not easy to love.

Through hardship did I then endure. I followed what people said was proper, appropriate, or, if I may, spiritually aligned, or as the religious may call it, godly. Restraining myself wasn’t the hardest part. It was the act of shaping oneself to act a way that wasn’t quite natural, a way that the people said would work. “For love”, I told myself, “I will endure”.

She was pretty, and she knew it. She was also smart enough to know what to say and when to say it, which is a different thing from being honest. Early on, there were words that felt like warmth, gestures that felt like interest. I took them at face value because I had decided, going in, that love was worth fighting for. So I fought. I stayed through the confusion, the mixed signals, the conversations that never quite arrived anywhere. I told myself that difficulty was part of it, that the right thing was rarely the easy thing. What I didn't want to admit was that I was also drawn to her in a simpler, less noble way, and that the philosophy I had dressed it in was partly a way of making that feel more dignified.

It took longer than I'd like to admit to see that I was the only one in the ring. She wasn't fighting, or even watching. She was simply elsewhere, emotionally, if not physically. When I finally said something, I was met with words that managed to be both elaborate and empty, a rejection wrapped so carefully in softness that it took me a moment to recognize what it was.

I expected to be sad. I wasn't. What I felt was closer to anger, at her, at the time spent, but mostly at myself. Not because I had cared, but because I had cared for the wrong reasons and stayed past the point where I knew it. The heartbreak wasn't really a heartbreak at all. It was the sting of recognizing your own self-deception.

I was trying to be good, I was trying to do what was right. Yet, it felt like doing what was right only caused me some misery. The pessimism settled in quickly, and isolation followed, as I found myself yearning for that which has always haunted me. It was then I went back to my old, but safe self. The one that pursued noncommittal relationships with women who desired me, in order to feel unconditionally loved, even if only for a bit. Old ties were rekindled for the sake of company, new ones began to fuel more of that hedonistic ideal. 

It may seem obvious to see that Lucifer was silly, to keep doing evil, rather than to make up with God, who likely would have accepted him. Yet it is in stories as such that we can see ourselves play out this tragedy. My descent was fueled by bitterness out of the unfairness that seemed to have met me on my way to salvation. I hated that my attempts to be better and follow what was right, only met with further trouble and wasted conviction. It would have been better if I had never tried, at least I would be a little less miserable.

The road down did feel rather nice. It was warm, consoling, not too lonely, and very familiar. Nights did not feel too heavy and lonesome. There is nothing awful with feeling like another being loves you. Unfortunately, I did not plan to truly love my suitors back, as the hidden child is still a little scared of commitment. He is terrified of getting hurt again, dejected and cast out, and feeling like he sabotaged the very thing he desired the most. However, even Lucifer, they say, was not beyond the reach of grace. The child had not yet learned that he had a choice.

Found

Past storm and drought, deep flood and snow.

I’ll do all I can to protect you, my precious little rose.

My soul ever wandering, in the dark, lonely abyss.

The thought of you is the only thing to give me temporary bliss.

There is this story of an old man who had already made peace with the shape of his life. He was prosperous, respected, and enjoyed the rhythm of work and the company of his people. One day, he notices a woman on the edges of his land. She was a new sight, but nothing extraordinary. Yet, something about her caught his eye. She was still, humble, and unfamiliar. The man asked his servants about her, interested in who she was. One fateful night, surrounded by the silence of distant stars, the two meet. Few words were exchanged, yet something neither had planned for had already begun. Through something so ordinary, a Messiah was born in the distant future. A miracle started by a glance across an unremarkable afternoon.

You could say that I had left the door open. Not out of hope, rather, out of habit. In all honesty, I never expected anyone to knock. In a way, I gave up on searching for the love I so desire, retreating to the confines of a welcoming past. This was, perhaps, the only reason she could have found me. 

Our meeting was one that would not have made for a good story at Christmas dinners, or one that would inspire a dreamer’s romantic passion. It wasn’t one of sneaky glances, of dropped handkerchiefs, or a fated encounter on a bench under a city of stars. Just a tiny note left to float across the seas in a bottle of stained glass, guided by divine powers to reach its destined shore. I’d like to think that the timid nature of the encounter was what made it feel different.

She was not what I had grown used to. There was no theatre in her, no attempt to be someone she wasn’t. There was a stillness to her that drew me in, a safety I had not encountered in a long time. Faced with something so foreign, I did not quite know what to do with it. It felt like I had spent so much time through modern courtship that modest sincerity felt wrong. I was trained in the art of calculated distance, of being just loving or kind enough that another was drawn in, without giving too much of myself away. This modest sincerity I was faced with felt suspicious. Maybe deep down, I was waiting for some kind of show to begin. It never did.

I recall thinking to myself that I did not deserve her. Not in the self-pitying way one may say to garner some reassurance, but in a way that’s more deeply reflective. It was an honest call to my shadow, a whisper that reminded me of that which I had long avoided. She was the antithesis to myself, a light that revealed how much I had been hiding. Hiding not just from the gaze of strangers and friends, but also from myself. At that moment I saw, with some real clarity, the form in which I had become after all this time. Someone who misunderstood emotional economy for strength. A boy who claimed his fear of getting hurt and acts of self-preservation as wisdom. The many wounds gathered across the years had been so well covered, I had forgotten to mend.

There is something special, and a little disorienting, about being discovered by someone who is not trying to see you. Unlike others, she wasn’t looking into my wounds, nor listing out my shortcomings. She was simply present, open, and patient. Standing by her, I couldn’t help but see myself clearly. A fearful child, born into a world that taught him how much things can hurt. Even so, she never tried to fix anything. She never needed to. She just needed to take my hand and walk with me as I left the old house I’ve always called home. The Wendy Darling to my Peter Pan, in a universe he chooses to grow up.

Perhaps it was time for the child to grow up. To show up when he is called. To stop mistaking self-protection for wisdom. To learn, for the first time, that love was not to be earned. Not because he was asked or forced to, but because he finally wanted to. The child who had spent his whole life looking for something to fill the hollow had always been looking in the wrong place. She wasn’t the piece that completed me, but a mirror I could finally look at without flinching. In beginning to love her, I had slowly learnt, though imperfectly, to love myself.

I never expected to feel it again. The butterflies. The tightness. The nervousness that can make a grown adult feel like a silly child. Somehow, there I was, stumbling through childlike love once again. For the first time in what felt like forever, I don’t really mind.

I’ll sing you songs, hold your hand under skies of blue. 

Oh, my love, eternity feels so short when I’m with you.

For better or worse, I’ll care for you with all my heart.

To love and cherish, as they say, until death do us part.