I married my first two boyfriends. Not at the same time. I grew up believing in the all consuming power of love. I believed that there were soulmates for everyone. Afterall, Disney never lies right? My bitter jaded adult brain has lost the glow and sparkle of young love. Love is a complicated and fickle thing. If love was a choose your own adventure book, I have chosen the wrong path, every time. In that adventure book, my love has been vanquished by the wrath of aliens, dinosaurs, and worst of all, my own self-sabotage. Would I do it again? Would I risk the devastation that is lost love? I guess you’ll have to read to find out.
There’s so many different kinds of love in the world. There are moments when your heart feels as if it could explode from happiness. So many forms of love, and each unique in its own way; love of a partner, child, mother, father, pet, or even an object. Love is like a spectrum of color, that only we can see. There are a million words written about it, but none can ever really describe the feeling. Love leaves us speechless. Love wraps around your heart like a live wire, zapping you from time to time when you think of that special someone. It feels smothering, but full of life. It sends little shivers of electricity down your spine, full of dopamine, serotonin, and the feeling of wholeness. Love sometimes lasts, but sometimes we’re left hollow and empty when it is taken from us. It can feel insane to even think of loving again after the utter annihilation that is heartbreak. In the face of such profound loss, how can we love again?
I’m not good at relationships. I married my first boyfriend when I was 18. He was the first person to like me, and that was enough for me to fall madly in love. I thought he was going to be the only one to love me, ever. I wasn’t mature enough to realize the giant bowl of malarkey that was. We married because we were supposed to, not because our love was omnipotent. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work out. It was the first heartache I had ever felt. Like being bulldozed by a tank. I was destroyed. I sat home every day listening to Adele while mascara ran down my face in drips of depression. The feeling was so overwhelming, I was sure no one would ever love me again. I truly believed that the rejection reflected on my unworthiness as a partner. I gave up on love, because I didn’t “deserve” it. It is almost impossible to feel love when your heart is trampled and soggy. I gave up, but love found me again.
My second boyfriend was my best friend. The love that I felt for him ran deeper than the naive affection for my first husband. We shared so many interests, constantly entertaining each other, and laughing. We always laughed. COVID did a lot of funny things to people; it changed me, and it changed him. The ties that held us so tightly together in that intoxicating embrace of new and deep love, loosened until we both fell apart from each other. Once again, I felt the absolute darkness and heartbreak that is love lost. I left the relationship feeling like wet lettuce; something left over that no longer had the vitality to hold itself up. He was still my best friend, and the love I had for him is still alive, but in a way, it was also dead; Like Schrodinger’s relationship. Twice failed. I felt like I should hide now. Love wasn’t for me.
While my story is one of romance evaporated, I acknowledge that there are so many worse pains in the world. Sometimes we lose people to the death of a relationship, sometimes we lose someone to actual death. The permanence of losing someone to death is beyond reasonable for people to recover from, but we do. I have had friends lose children. Something that takes my breath away in sadness as just an observer, how can they possibly live through that? But they do. I have seen people who unexpectedly lose spouses. There’s no warning, no preparing for that kind of loss. How can you love someone again, when the only thing you have to compare them to is someone who was perfect in your memories. When the love never died, just the vessel? But they do. The loss of my “soul cat” left me with a sorrow that felt as if it was swallowing me from the inside out. How could I possibly love any animal again? But I did.
Love is never lost. Love lives on. In grief, we often forget that the love that we had is directly proportional to the grief that we feel. If we did not love, then how could it hurt as it does? It feels impossible to start over, but time truly heals all wounds if you let it. If you loved, and were loved in return, then you know it is possible. Keep yourself open to that possibility. The love you lost might not be the same as the love you find. You may turn to other things in the face of grief. Love for your community, for your hobbies, for yourself. If you look around, you will find it in tiny little gorgeous sparkles each day. Most importantly, find love for yourself. If you cannot love and accept yourself, then no one will ever be able to do it for you. You will outright reject the thought that you are worthy of it, but I am here to shout it from the rooftop my loves, you are worthy of love.
When I think of romantic love now, I feel defeated before I’ve begun. However, in the process of losing the two people I was once bonded with “for life,” I started a long journey to loving myself. I started to find value in what I do, and who I am deep at my core. I will never break up with myself, so I will always have love, as long as I fuel that fire of self-appreciation. The more I loved myself, the more often wonderful people began to appear in my life. I love many of them. When it comes to romantic love, I am stubborn. I refuse to give up hope, and sometimes that pays off. I have met someone recently, who makes sure that I am taken care of first; By that I mean making sure I take care of myself first. They encourage me to make sure I always fill my own cup before I fill theirs. You can’t pour from an empty cup. They encourage me, and make sure that I am valuing myself first, but they certainly value me as much as I value them. I have to say… They’re pretty wonderful. There’s hope, because I now accept that I’m worthy of what love they have to give me. In these precious early days of dating, I remind myself that even just liking someone is a miraculously beautiful feeling. It reminds me that I can love again, and feel it’s warm glow like sunshine exploding from my chest. With them, I have learned that I never really gave up, I just forgot to hope. Deep down I do believe that love will always live on.
