$$ March 2022 $$

I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately. What comprises it, what gives it shape, what makes it happen, and all of that. It’s a puzzling puzzle, I tell you, that you can love someone and want to give them the world and they won’t accept it. And then someone can love you and want to give you the world and you won’t accept it. What’s happening? Why do we talk at length about how much we want to experience love, only to reject it when it comes our way? Why do we reject perfectly great people and what could have been perfectly great lives?

Because we’re lying. Because it’s not just cute, silly love we want from a relationship. We want more. We want the perfect drama — the space to be good and bad and ugly, the opportunity to be hurt and to be saved, the setup that lets you be the hero and the victim as your heart pleases. We want a fable. A tale. Oh! a tale. Think back to your favourite movie or story, was it ever a simple story that moved you?

And there’s nothing bad or wrong about wanting it. Hell, what does bad or wrong even mean. You should want whatever it is that you want. The insight here, though, is that maybe, just maybe, there’s power in stopping to pretend that you want a wholly good love. A love that’s only kind, and tender, and joyful, and beautiful, and empowering. Because you don’t. I know I don’t. I want a love that’s all of those good things. But that’s also unkind, and stern, and dark, and ugly, and limiting on some days.

So, with that out of the way, I think the contract of love isn’t what they say it is about. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about being perfect for each other. It’s about humouring each other. It’s about sitting together and witnessing each other’s dramas, letting them act out, even helping them act out, it’s about not judging them when they do, not demanding that they or you be wholly “good”, it’s about accepting them and their immeasurable power to fuck things up, and sometimes even fucking things up together. It’s about being a team.

I don’t know if this is too cynical for some. Maybe it is. But I think it’s beautiful. I think there’s great strength and power in not fearing the dark in us so much.

<aside> 🥰 here is a little bit about me. and if you’d like you can buy me a coffee here.

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