I recently read something somewhere - something along the lines of 'a true love story never ends'. That got me thinking. Does it never end? I used to think so. I used to think a lot of things about these matters that I don't necessarily think anymore, and I don't think it's because I've outgrown those ideas, really, but rather because I've been so disillusioned for such a long time now that I can't afford to think about them at all.
I was born with the wrong kind of heart, and with the wrong kind of brain. I feel way too much, and overthink even more. And I grew up reading whatever came my way, I read everything I could - and though I understood very little of much I read, I understood love. I understood burning, fierce unrequited love. I believed - with all my heart - that there would be someone, somewhere who would be the love of my life. I wanted to get married and have a family since I was very young : my wee self pictured me spending my life with my love and our children. So, as I grew up, and started to realize that maybe finding someone wasn't that easy, I felt that when that happened it had to mean that I had found the love of my life.
And of course - my first girlfriend, with whom I was together for close to eight years and had a son, wasn't the love of my life. I am incredibly grateful that we met each other and had some good times together, but maybe our relationship could have been cut short by a couple of years and none of us would have complained. But you spend so long with someone, and when that story ends, there's a huge part of you that desperately wants to connect again. You want to feel that you're still worthy of affection. Of love. Obviously, what happens is that you mistake lust for love, you mistake a crush for love, you mistake passion for love. You mistake something you don't give for something that is not given. And these things happen, it's part of the process. They make you grow, and make you understand what to do, and what you want. They can also make you colder and distant, too. They can become a pattern - one so empty that you no longer believe in romance or intimacy.
There is a long line in my life from childhood until the moment I started questioning my notions of true love. I made a compromise with myself when I was about 26 or 27 that there would be no such thing as the love of my life, because I wouldn't be the same person throughout my life. So there would - maybe - be the love of that particular time of my life. That made sense to me. However - this was a thought process that went through the mind of someone who still thought that love alone could solve any problem, that love by itself was enough to salvage any relationship. And it would take the breakdown of my relationship with Silvia to realize that love is just part of an engine - not the whole of it. If the other parts of the engine - which are just as vital - don't function properly, or are neglected, or just aren't there anymore, then you're on the road to entropy. I had left our relationship feeling empty, and unable to believe in love again. My mind had started equating love with pain, with suffering. That's not how I had ever thought love would feel like. And so, by the time I was about 34 I already found myself on my way out of all this. Nothing made sense. Nothing worked. I didn't feel I was on the same page as others. I dichotomized myself into someone that wanted and someone that didn't want. The former was strong, but the latter would speak louder.
The last thing I had ever hoped was to one day find the love of my life - especially when I wasn't looking. Neither for her, nor for anyone else. I wasn't prepared for that to happen - what I was prepared was for the pattern that had become my relationships to continue until I gave up altogether. But not with her, no - It didn't even cross that Sofia and I would ever be in a relationship. No matter how many times I say this, that first time we were together , the thought that she might even be remotely interested in me was not one I could even entertain. She had this aura about her of being unattainable, unreachable : the most perfect jewel that no mortal eye was worthy of seeing. To this day, I can't fathom what she ever saw in me.
And we had what we had, our story was what it was. I'm glad we got to live those few months we had together. I lived something I never experienced again, and I never will. And I... given the chance to go back? I would do it again. And again. And again.
You know, as I get older I find it an increasingly rewarding thing to be as honest as possible with myself. I lied to myself so much. I will not do it again. Even if I have to finally acknowledge that maybe sometimes the love of your life isn't the one you'll spend the rest of your days with, even if I have to publicly admit that I will live with this love forever inside my heart, though I must do it alone. I've been so afraid for more than a decade, afraid and ashamed and exhausted, but I am not going to feel any of that anymore. Here I find myself going back to Dickens again, and this time I have it right, it is from 'A Tale of Two Cities'. It's the closing lines - 'It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.'
I'm glad I found the love of my life, once upon a time. I'm glad I lived it, even if all too briefly. I am glad I feel it still - love edifies, it soothes, it makes you more and better, and never lesser.
It's ok if real life isn't like fiction promised, it's ok if it's not like the movies or like the books or like all those TV shows. Maybe there is no such thing as a happy ending, maybe there is a quiet resignation to one's fate, to one's choices. Maybe that's a crucial part of being a grown up, realizing that at some point in your life you'll have to content yourself with 'good enough' because there is no such thing as 'perfect' or 'ideal'. Maybe it's accepting that eventually you have to move past this feeling and make do with what you have.
Maybe. That's a lesson that I can never hope to learn, though. I'll see you in the next life.
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