The impossible truth of “loving” someone:

Today, she and I woke up

(for the second time)

(the first had one of us in tears at 3am)

in a bed that belongs to neither of us, one person on either side of two snoring french bulldogs who also belong to neither of us. I told my boss who took a trip to Lisbon that of course I can watch the dogs!!

(she did not mention the snoring)

(I wouldn’t either)

I worry she’s mad at me even though I’m not the one snoring and they’re not my dogs anyway and each of us has a long day ahead of us. but she could have left if she wanted to, right?

A dog will never simuntaneously internalize and project another human’s worries and anxieties. For this reason and many others, it is much more convenient to “love” a dog than to “love” another human being.

The impossible truth of “loving” someone is that sometimes you want to cry so bad it hurts but the other person cries first and so you obviously can’t because then that would be making it about you and no of course you cannot do that. You must wait your turn.

The impossible truth about “loving” someone is that each of you is a person who lives her own life each day and if you choose to, you come together and share air and space and time the best you possibly can. You come home and you want to ramble on about something that happened at work and so does the other person. You want to be validated but she wants to be held accountable. You don’t want advice. She wants a solution.

When the option exists to reconcile my day on my own, with zero risk of saying the wrong thing, it seems masochistic to endure the company of another.

To try to explain my mood? To try to be attractive?

Impossible

The impossible thing about “loving” someone is that it takes time.

And some days, you go an entire 24 hours without saying, “I love you” and sometimes, you say it just because there’s nothing else to say. Or maybe you’re waiting for them to say it first. Just in case they stopped loving you yesterday and didn’t think to update you. Some days, you’ll be presented with the rare opportunity to do something that makes you feel like you have a purpose and you’ll just altogether forget to ask the other person how their day was even though you just told her you’d start asking more about her work life.

It was on your list of intentions this week damn it!

The impossible truth of “loving” someone is that you might make her a playlist and she might not listen to it.

The impossible truth of “loving” someone is that it can look different each day. Moreover, it can look different to what everyone always told you it was supposed to look like. Some days, it will be a phone call over four hours. Some days, it will be chatting to a friend about the small stuff that’s nagging you because sometimes, love can be about what you choose not to say. Some days, it will be an apology you don’t fully believe you need to make. Some days, you’ll sleep over and be uncomfortable and sit in unresolved conflict and wake up the next morning, have sex, and still have shit to say afterwards.

Some days, you’ll have to ask to be heard. You’ll have to ask for things you think you shouldn’t have to ask for — things you wish you didn’t have to ask for.

Some days, you’ll try to remember all the ways you’ve been loved before and you’ll wonder whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing that none of them have ever felt like this before.

The impossible truth of “loving” someone is that it does not happen in one straight “fall.” This whole falling in love imagery has always, to me, looked like the bird’s-eye view from atop a cliff, down the rocky side, straight into a valley; I imagined that once I landed safely in the water, I’d swim in love, buoyant and fresh. But the love is not the end.

I guess no one ever claimed that you fall to love.

Anyway,

it’s more like you choose to search for love. You overturn every rock and check every corner, meticulous and thorough. You piece together something whole from all the broken bits you find. And from all the memories you have created together. And apart, I guess.

The impossible thing about loving someone is that they can always choose to not love you anymore. And you, them. And that also means that each moment they show up, each glass they fill for you, each playlist they make for you, each argument they resolve and each honest and uncomfortable thought they share is evidence; easily missable, more-so as time ticks on; of their choice to love you.

The impossible thing about loving someone is that my heart wants to show itself all over the place,

the sloppy thing!

my heart yearns to be seen and held and known

and no one will ever see or hold or know my heart the way I see or hold or know my own heart

and the same is true for the person I’m trying to love

so what on Earth are we supposed to do with that?

Until You Know Better

Release the resistance to play. Throw the ball for the dog.

Release the need to make her like the music you like. Let her listen to bad music.

Try something new. Fail at it. Humble your damn self!

Great Artists Steal

A fellow teacher at the yoga studio started this morning’s class with the following words, reading from a card in her two hands: “I embrace the mess my heart makes. It chooses love. It chooses to feel. It chooses to wander far beyond the bounds of what seems like a logical decision. It risks being broken in order to stretch. It risks rejection in order to know the rush of being honest. It risks being wrong just to see what might be right.”