thoughts on love
2003-11-01
Moments are passed in silence as I contemplate my computer, searching the archives of my mind for another structure upon which to model my words. Ideas fleetingly bob to the surface of consciousness, taking the bait but deftly escaping the sting of the hook. And so I reach for that most obvious of subjects, painted in the foreground of my current life portrait: a subject I have long been wary of, but one which demands as much thought from my navel-contemplating, ever-ruminating brain as any other subject that filters through it.
Love. Yes, that most infamous of four-letter-words. What does it mean to me? What does it mean to anyone? Affection, longing, intimacy, warmth, compassion, companionship, affirmation, belonging, trust, union…I can throw ten thousand adjectives into the cosmos and only ever indulge in mere semantics. Love is the human in humanity. Love exists in me as much as in any other, although for years I had the most haunting fear that I was somehow lacking in capacity for it beyond the realm of family, friends and beloved pets; beyond my love of words and thought and poetry and science.
Since the age of six, I have never lived anywhere for more than five years. I went to seven schools in total from year one to year twelve, never once remaining at any one school for more than three years. My friendships were often confined to the duration of my limited tenure, and my inherent shyness prevented me from building strong networks. Even within a single school, I would drift from one group of friends to another; never really growing overly attached to more than a precious few individuals. I was not antisocial per se. I was simply unable to find many people I could relate to; people who would read the stories I wrote, or would provide competition in academic performance. But when I did find the people I was searching for, it was then that I truly came into my own.
In retrospect, it is quite obvious that my transient lifestyle as a child, coupled with my own temperament, contributed to many of the issues that remain with me now as a twenty-year-old woman. Anxiety and depression, shyness and avoidance of intimate relationships are nothing new to me. I once felt ashamed; that I was irreparably inept and incapable. I thought I was a lesbian. I thought I should become a nun to justify my virginity. I thought I was a bad woman, unable to give anything to the few men who took an interest in me. But I have since proven myself wrong. In thought and deed, I know now that I needn’t assault myself with guilt or shame for my reluctance, and I needn’t listen to anyone who accuses me of being that most stereotypical of female figures berated by society: the so-called ice maiden. I do not need to justify myself to anyone for the decisions I have made in relationships, for like the precious circle of friends I have gathered to my side over the years, I have only ever come into my own, have only ever given of myself, to those who understand me; those who make me feel comfortable in being who I am, without apology or editing. Finding those people takes time.
There has only been one man in my short existence who has been this, and of the handful of men who have crossed my path, he is the one I think of most fondly; he is the one whose mind I love, whose memory I cherish, and whose company I savour. Ironically, he is also the man I see the least of; the one man I was too afraid to love in the face of having to say goodbye. That man is Owen, and he lives 1000 km away in the outer suburbs of the New South Wales capital of Sydney – a place in which I spent twelve life-changing months of my life as a wide-eyed sixteen-year-old girl.
When Owen comes down to visit me in January, I hope that he will forgive me for my past confusion; for the misunderstanding of feelings; for the unspoken emotions I have let fester beneath us, turning something sweet and promising and real into, in the words of D.H. Lawrence, ‘mind-perverted, will-perverted, ego-perverted love”. I want nothing more than to sweep the complication and confusion from my mind, and embrace this man as he is: a dear friend, a first love, a love in potential, a person whose presence has never truly left me over the past five years. He was the one to have stood by me in spite of everything; the person with whom I have shared my philosophies, my ambitions, my hopes and my secrets, and from whom I have felt nothing but unconditional affection and…love. Am I not lucky to have found such a person already, to have him as my friend and confidant, as my consolation in a world of uncertainty? Yes he is, you might say, my ‘soul mate’. But can we ever have anything? Can we ever broach the distance, set aside the dashed hopes I have created in his mind because of my confusion? Can this ‘tale of two cities’ have a happy ending?
Our last parting in Canberra was handled badly on my behalf. To my credit, I was living in a hellhole for six weeks in a strange city, completely out of my element and hopelessly homesick. To deal with that in addition to the emotional turmoil of the first reunion I had had with Owen in four years was asking a great deal. The realisation that Owen would likely never leave Sydney – at least, not for my humble home in Adelaide -, coupled with my resolute desire at the time to go home and never leave again, (so tired of Canberra was I) cast my thoughts into darkness. I believed there would never be a chance for us to found a relationship on anything solid or lasting. I didn’t want to live in Sydney at any stage in the near future and he was, by the same token, loath to leave it. What good was that if we were to contemplate having a tactile, meaningful relationship?
The night when Owen and I believed there would never be a chance for us, the night I told him that it wouldn’t work, I was close to dissolution. I found it hard to get up the following morning, to spend my last day with him before he slipped through my fingers for perhaps the last time. After that day, it was difficult for me to talk to him, to feel the pain of futility. When I got back home, I was rude to him on the phone on one occasion, preferring to distance myself from him, to make him hate me, rather than continue in the direction of our dead-end prospects. But I failed to take heed of an important fact: in life, there are few certainties. If something is important enough, meaningful enough, it will be brought to fruition, even if it requires a compromise, a sacrifice, a change in the stubbornness of independence. I hold no desire that we will fall ‘madly in love’ upon our next reunion, or that his visit here will change much beyond the re-ignition of hope. What I do want is for him to leave with the knowledge that all is not lost, that the possibilities are not engineered to result in futility. I want him to leave with the hope at least that whatever it is that is between us, it will find a way of persisting, whatever the form.
Declan once told me that relationships don’t need to last; that people can be ‘practice shots’ for future loves. I do not know if that is true. I do not know if I believe in giving myself to someone I know I won’t be with in five, even ten years. But perhaps we do need, to a certain extent, the experience of other partners in order to sharpen our sense of who we are and who we can see ourselves being with for that longer haul. In that respect, my limited experience since Owen has shown me that he, at least out of the few people I have known since, more closely resembles that person I can imagine loving indefinitely. What this means for myself, for him, and for any future dealings with the opposite sex, remains to be seen.
It is the fear of a virgin that holds me in check; the fear of surrendering control and losing myself; the fear of making a high stakes gamble and ending up bankrupt. In all honesty, the reason I cannot commit to Declan is because I cannot picture us possessing a future. I cannot date a man who reminds me too much of my father, however much that may sound absurd. For all his charms, his affinity for binge drinking terrifies me. When I picture any kind of relationship with him, I picture my parents. It is too strong a psychological snag to overcome. I could not date him without worrying that I am somehow following the worn and weary road of my mother, and that he will fall like my father fell. Slowly, without grace, into the depths of dissolution. I cannot carry that concern, even if I am only imposing it on myself. Declan may well be a wonderful partner, but I would not be a wonderful partner in return.And so the final question is: for what, in the end, am I waiting to give my heart? In the words of Thomas Pynchon: “I want to be taken in love: so taken that you and I, and death, and life, will be gathered inseparable, into the radiance of what we would become.” Many people value sex above love, or confuse the two, but I want to believe that it is through love, and not sex alone, that union will be found, however naïve and idealistic some people may judge me for believing so. I will open myself to the world; I will love, but I also refuse to confuse sex and pure physical attraction with that most infamous of four letter words. When I give my body, it will be at the same time that I give my heart. And that, my friend, is the answer to my reluctance.
