Love

Ruminating on matters of the heart

In the gentleness of the soft sounds of raindrops pattering on the roof on this cool dove grey September morn, I find myself contemplating love and ancient, bittersweet, memories.

Yesterday, my love for someone in the past was questioned. You didn’t really love him, she said, he was just a rebound after a great love. Didn’t I? Was it? Who is the judge of my feelings in any given moment in time, I bristled. What is love?

With six decades behind me, there have been a few romances, amorous encounters, fleeting affairs even but for the most part I’ve been a serial monogamist with three fairly long-term relationships. I have loved and been loved. There has been heartbreak and hurt but also joy and peace. Looking back, there were subtleties, different intensities, shades and flavours of love, widths and depths forged through personalities and circumstances and stages of life. Over the years, the love in each relationship grew and shrunk and grew again, sometimes passionate, sometimes compassionate, sometimes just plain old resentful; roller-coastering till it reached the end station whether with gentle easing of the brakes or a screeching abrupt halt. Is any love greater than another? Who can say really. Does it even matter?

While some loves may endure a lifetime, most run their course after a period and it’s often when paths diverge or growth stagnates or needs change. Does it mean the love that lived through the relationship was any less valued, real, true? Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be a ‘forever love’. Sometimes, when ways part, love can evolve into a deep friendship with fondness and goodwill towards the other, and sometimes the hurt or betrayals, perceived or real, can cause such a rift that it completely breaks every bond. An ending, whether light or dark, mutually agreed or not, is never easy and almost always sends one through a ‘grief’ journey and sometimes it’s just so damn hard to get past the anger stage of grief. But, you know, everything is temporary and things ending is part of life. To love means allowing yourself to be vulnerable and being vulnerable can open you up to hurt. Is it worth it? I say yes.

Maybe it wasn’t the right time or place. Or, maybe sometimes you just can’t love or be loved the way you or the other needs to be loved. Is that on the other person? Are they responsible for your happiness? How well do we understand our need for love and our own love language? How well do we communicate this to our partner in love? Can we live with loving someone who loves us in a way that doesn’t satisfy how we feel we should be loved? How does that marry with accepting and loving someone for who they are? At what point does our expectation of ‘love’ become an unbearable burden, a kind of emotional blackmail, against the loved one? At what point do we let go and accept it isn’t for us, that it can’t just continue because it’s habitual or comfortable? Sorry, more questions than answers here.

You didn’t really love him! For hours, I combed through old photos of our early days together, questioning the validity of that statement. I know there was love. It’s visible in the embraces and postures, how we looked at each other, in how we each captured the other and the returned gaze. Was he my ‘soulmate’? Did he give me butterflies or provoke blinding lust in me? Did I love him in the same way I love my husband now? I would say not really to all of that but on reflection, yes, I felt love. It was a deeply loving partnership in my memory which came from trust, of feeling emotionally safe and secure and supported - well, until it wasn’t anymore. There was affection, intimacy, commitment, and care for each other. Is that not love?

The photos didn’t capture the fights, the negative ugly moments, but there were so many happy times, good times full of fun and laughter and shared adventures. It was cathartic to look back. The realisation of all the hurt that had been held buried in my heart over the decades was painful but at the same time it allowed a release, allowed me to let go, to remember the positives, to feel at peace with the past and free of resentment, indignation, and regret. Rather fitting, it occurs to me, under this full moon lunar eclipse in Pisces which is asking us to ‘let go’.

If you’re looking for a good read on the ‘love’ theme, I’ve just finished the achingly beautiful and somewhat sensuously melancholy ‘The Japanese Lover’ by Isabel Allende. A bit slow and meandering to start but with a rapid almost breathless finish about love in it’s many splendored and complex ways. I’m still savouring it and can’t quite pick anything else up.

Thank you for reading, for indulging my little musings on love this morning - truly appreciated! I would love to hear from you so please do drop me a note in the comments below.

ciao per ora bellissime sorelle / bye for now beautiful sisters

F ox

The Bohemian

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NB All images, unless external credit given, are CCO or copyright Fiona Pape (aka F_ox).