Ah, love.
You calculated gamble you!
I went home to visit friends this past weekend & we’re all finalizing our divorces (woo hoo). As we drank wine & waxed about life, it was fairly obvious that some of us were sort of jaded about love. Apparently it was surprising that I still haven’t given up on the idea of love.
As I’ve said before, regardless of where I am in my life, I’ll always write about the pursuit & joy that comes with love. The very idea that one person gives you something so powerful that you’d want their company every day for the rest of your life is a pretty awesome thing.
Love is such a calculated risk; we always look at that Disney love as real when in reality, it’s kind of…hollow. Sure, it’s warm & fuzzy, but much like The Bachelor/ette it’s as fake as they come. Love is that thing that like the quote above says isn’t practical or convenient & unlike those Disney Princesses, needs work to survive. You can’t bail on the first petty issue or the second, because you’ll end up always in a mess. Truthfully, you’re gonna make mistakes, it’s human nature. You’re going to hurt each other’s feelings, make mistakes, handle things wrong, but in the end, the feeling of knowing that this is just the right thing is the real testament of love.
We all search for that William & Kate fairy tale wedding, we never look at the reality; they fought, they broke up twice & in the end, realized they belonged together. Chances are they had to eat crow & admit they made mistakes; William had even dated several women, but they got the fairy tale by trudging through the reality.
Sometimes we need to trudge through the reality. Admit we effed up, made mistakes & accept that sometimes, we’re not even gonna like our partner’s face. But if we love them, it’s worth it & we have to stop watching through the window, waiting for that neon sign to smack us & say “go for it.” We need to take that leap & go for it because chances are, that’s the thing worth doing. Truthfully, that’s a struggle for me, because that fear of being rejected by the person I would want most, that I had gone out on a limb for scares me. But maybe, we need to silence that nagging self doubt, & just jump. But truthfully, only you know the answer, whether its worth the risk or you should just continue to stare longingly on the outside looking in. Or…maybe you are the answer & you just don’t know it.
“The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.”
The Misadventures of MHC 