Being in Love With Love

Love - I honestly don't know where to even begin, except by saying: I loved love. Falling in love, being in love, loving someone and every sugary and romantic little detail that goes along with it brought me an immense amount of joy. I loved to chase that elusive feeling you get when you first begin to fall in love with someone - the spark of the new, the intensity of the passion. Love was this captivating and compelling force that I wanted all around me. I was always preoccupied with the notions of love as expressed in music, movies, and fiction because I wanted exactly that; that special feeling of infatuation accompanied by belly butterflies and other heart-stopping sensations. I was longing for that romance, that oh-so-perfect fairytale every character of every romantic movie I have ever watched seemingly always got. I wanted all of that for myself. 

At first glance, this doesn't even seem so bad. I mean it's understandable, right? What's not to love about love? What could be so wrong about wanting to feel loved, about wanting to be in love? It’s understandable to want to chase the feelings of aliveness, meaning, and completion. Isn't that what we all desire? To feel alive, to erase the emptiness inside ourselves, to know where our lives are leading, and to finally feel complete? 

Well, that's exactly the problem. When we assign the task of living a meaningful and fulfilled life to another person, instead of where it truly belongs, disaster ensues. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with loving that ecstatic feeling of being in love or loving someone; the problem arises in its complete misappropriation. When we seek out that sense of completion, that sense of wholeness and belonging in another human being instead of ourselves, we will never be truly happy with ourselves and our lives. Believe me when I tell you I had to learn this lesson the hard way. 

Whenever I had a partner at my side I was content, I was happy - literally beaming with joy. As one should in a healthy, loving, and nurturing relationship. The predicament, however, was that my relationships were the exact opposite of what is considered healthy or nurturing. While relationships can be difficult from time to time I'd call being cheated on repeatedly, being verbally abused, being made to feel small, unimportant, and unworthy more than just a little difficult. Nevertheless, I always stayed. I stayed in relationships despite feeling dissatisfied, despite harboring secret thoughts of leaving or going back to an ex-partner that had treated me badly. 

Often times I even lowered my bar for people who couldn't reach it in the first place. And the worst part of it? I knew exactly what I was doing. I did it because I couldn't stand the thought of being alone. I needed someone with me, always and constantly. It wasn't about just the physical intimacy, it wasn't about just the attention, I wanted someone who was fully committed to me in every aspect, someone who was always there, someone who truly loved me (spoiler alert: a lot of my partners didn't). 

After yet another failed relationship, I finally started to ask myself why. Why did I need this love from another person so desperately? It wasn't like I didn't have any friends or family. I have the most supportive and loving parents one could ask for and my circle of friends is everything one could dream of. Apart from that, I had always considered myself to be a confident and independent person. I don't mind being by myself at all, I actually really enjoy it. Nor did I think of myself as ugly or uninteresting. I also didn't believe that I was undeserving of someone who would treat me right. So what was it then? 

Being with someone took away my fear - my fear of the unknown, my fear of the future, of where my life was heading, of growing up, and of having to figure out everything on my own. Because whenever I had a partner, I didn't have to worry about myself. I was fine just being someone's girlfriend. Actually, I was not only fine - I loved it. I loved talking about my relationship, I loved showing it off, I loved just having it, even though I knew deep down that it wasn't fulfilling me in the way I forced myself to believe it did. Being in a relationship was like my little project, as cruel as it sounds. I could pour all of my time, effort, and love into the relationship and into this other person and therefore didn't need to think about myself. Honestly, I didn't even want to think about myself. I didn't want to figure out what my needs and wants are, I didn't want to think about tomorrow or the future. The imaginary bubble I filled with love and romance was exactly where I was the most content. 

I'm assuming I don't have to explain why this thinking is harmful and damaging. The problem is, even though I knew what I was doing it was hard to stop. "Wherever you go, there you are" or so the saying goes and it is absolutely true. You can't escape or outrun yourself. No matter how hard you try to distract yourself, at the end of the day you are still here and so is your life. What I had to realize is that this is not something negative. Having your whole life in front of you and not really knowing where it goes yet can be scary. While it is scary, it is also exciting because you get to decide everything. You get to find out what you actually want in this life, you get to discover who you are, you get to experience what it means to actually live. And yes you will make mistakes, you will experience pain, loss, and heartbreak, but you get to grow from these experiences and you get to learn from them and that is something no other person can ever give you. 

Being on your own can be uncomfortable, intimidating even. Being with someone just because you don't want to be alone is not only unhealthy, it will also never fulfill you in the way you thought it would. And it shouldn't fulfill you. Living and having a full life is nobody's job but your own and that takes time and practice. It takes time to fall in love with yourself and your life. The good thing is you have more than enough time to figure it out. 

"Falling in love with love is falling for make-believe." - Lorenz Hart