The stuff of Legend

There’s the kind of dark, joyless, fearful, choice-less love you find in the sharing of blood and DNA with someone you wouldn’t know otherwise. The kind that rears up when you see the person in question and says: ‘Oh, I love him!’ And then subsides again. The kind that borders on distaste, disrespect and in earlier times, hate.

There’s the kind that consists mostly of fierce loyalty, like for treasured pets. That make you look at other people who ‘trade-in’ beloved Butch for a new, more Jonesy-model, and think: “What a clueless ass you are”, since they just don’t get the unconditionality of it all.

There’s the kind that you feel for a friend who, for a while, might have meant more, but never actually was more, that’s forever tainted with a resigned sadness.

The kind you feel for people who walk around with eyes like twin open wounds, that makes you want to run to them, and just take them away, cos you remember the taste of that fear.

The kind a child feels for a parent, total, selfish and one-dimensional. That sees you as a being made to love and raise them up, and chooses to not see the person inside.

There’s the kind you treasure for old friends, that makes you sigh when they talk about how they’re back with their ex (AGAIN), and listen anyway, and get ready to soothe the inevitable hurt, even though you know it’ll just happen again.

The kind of love you feel for your brave body, that nurtured and birthed, and gets up every day, and acts as a comforter for so many. And your brave mind and soul, that stood in the middle of years of abuse, sorrow and fear, and still came out mostly whole.

And then, the one kind I am unable to report on, the kind I used to think was the ultimate kind. Romantic love. A foolish, ingrained dream, a landscape that exists only in hungry minds. I’ve wanted to be loved in a passionate, feverish, possessive kind of way. Wholly, with no reserve, to give myself to someone. Which is impossible, because those shivers that run up and down the spine, dies down. And later on, the kisses do not make up for the broken promises. And, the endless talking, without meaning, drowns out any affection that was left. In short, the truth shines through. And, this love, as fleeting as melting ice cream, drips down to the ground and evaporates. Forever becomes a year, six years, twenty-four years, finite and sad. And infinitely false.

Love is different for all of us. There are those who believe they have the true version, and those like me, who no longer believe in that version. Love is subjective and conditional, contracted, “you do this for me, I do that for you”. The kind that binds in the forever kind of way, is not, never was, and never will be. The only true form of it, is the form that comes with clearly defined limits, borders. “How much of yourself are you willing to lay on the altar? That much? Ok, then I can give you fidelity, maybe. You give me that part there, too, and I’ll give you affection for the next 5 years.” I was a believer, a romantic, whatever you‘d call it. Then, I lived a while, and was enlightened. You show me a good marriage, I’ll show you a well-thought out, clearly defined role play. There’s no such thing as safety, no such thing as eternal, no such thing as True Love. There just ain’t. Pull on those Big-Girl-panties, and deal.