i was told to write a love story
these days, i am writing until my wrists cramp up. i started journaling with a brand new pen at the beginning of the month, and it's now nearing empty. i began written correspondence with a long-time peer. i lay out my days in ink, carbon, clay, wax. i write more abstractly, on my face, communicating through makeup in swatches and blending, with all roads leading to my eyes. eyes, i think, are the loudest conduit into speaking what's unsaid--it's very brave to invite conversation in this way. these days, i am speaking more.
so when i was given this "homework" of sorts, earlier this month, surprisingly, i was in a rut. i couldn't think of a thing. "write a love story."1 it seems simple enough but-- see, i am transitioning out of this... (this is where i use both hands to animate a map of peaks and valleys with the psychopomp walking beside me, feeling the timeline blur as i contort my fingers and hear my joints pop from my attempts to conceptualize a romance drifting off course into the fog)
i've parsed through reddit threads pathologize this experience as limerence, and arguments of this sensation implying the love experienced was a sham, when, to experience love is to experience love, even in instances where the love is not as reciprocal.
i've received targeted ads speak of things like, "if they wanted to, they would. and i get it, it's hard to adjust without them. luckily, this app can walk with you during this tough time." hate is a strong word, but i hate when the passage of grief is neatly packaged into a commodity.
i've noticed the sheer coincidences of seeing couples in public--grocery shopping, eating in the park, taking photos of each other harbourside--right when i feel lamentations of "what could be, what could have been" creep up as reflux.
i have to laugh, because these things--conversations of what is and isn't this feeling, algorithmic marketing of the most sinister kind, couples of all relationship stages and intimacies existing--have always been there. love is everywhere, and always has been. it's there when i'm not phased by way of heartbreak. it turns out, though, i'm grieving, and i've been busy enough with life that i didn't have the time to name this until this past week. my heart very much aches and, i admit, i am very phased.
someone once told me, "if not in love, in grief, i shall forever carry you. i don't want to carry you in grief. i want to carry you in love." it stung, knowing that our fate was what it was but, you know, i used to think love is a promise2, one that is locked in. as it turns out, that's unfairly unrealistic. i grew up with idealized notions of love, not quite fairy tale but more rose-colored. so the notion of "forever," even in grief, was as romantic as valid to me for a while. lately, well, no, it hurts me to think this way.
the truth is, things like falling out of love and no longer being loved by someone you love can happen at any time. to love includes accepting3 that possibility, and to continue to love despite it. and, well, if someone chooses to love me still, in grief and after the fact, that's their choice to continue, because any love i've given is theirs to keep.
where does that leave the prompt, though? i suppose i got a bit carried away, but i'm getting there. i feel, in order to write a proper love story, i need to articulate what love means to me, relative to the scar tissue on my heart, old and new, and how i've changed over time. this includes the love i've sown for myself. i've heard a saying go around that you can't love someone else if you don't love yourself first. i have contention with that, in the sense that everyone deserves to love even if they haven't reached that level of self-compassion yet. people are more capable of love than they think.
however, i do think loving yourself is a result of getting to know yourself. and because of that, you get a better idea of what love means, what being loved means, and how you can express that to others. now, love doesn't have a one-and-done definition to it (otherwise just toss all platonic philosophy and centuries-worth of a catalog of literature and art in the trash), but its meaning evolves along with you.
so, to write a love story, i need to have a better understanding of love, and then maybe, just maybe, i'll be able to honor the prompt the best way i can. the idea will come to me, for sure. after quite a bit of loving myself, and navigating a sobering heartbreak, this is what love means to me so far:
love is when the honeymoon phase tapers off, that new person energy, after "i love you" has been confessed and the initial excitement simmers and what's left is the arena for a deeper connection, where curiosity persists despite knowing what you know about one another, and you still want to know more, all while seeing a future of a home, a life together, these tenets of merging into each other less scary and more evocative of "i want to do this with you. i choose you."
i speak of a deep romantic love here. a cherishing love. a love that weathers storms. a love that takes the leap, the plunge. a love that is equitable. a love that is true. a love that seeks to find words and gestures to describe the butterflies, the kindling, the depths, the light that still breathes. a love that feels like coming home.
this is the first prompt i'm writing that was given to me by someone else. i'll try asking friends for prompts from here on.↩
i was inspired to write this post because of that post. when finishing up this post, i realized it's more of a companion piece than i thought, but they both can stand alone.↩
i think if you're scared to lose someone you love, that's a signal, in a way, that what you are feeling is real. i am a romantic at the end of the day, after all.↩