First off let me tell you that I believe in Love! No! I mean really believe in LOVE! I believe in eyes meeting across crowded rooms or…ha ha friends’ Facebook pages (obviously). I believe in fairytale love stories, in knights rescuing damsels in distress, in riding off to win your love’s hand, in eternal, everlasting love. I really don’t buy into this watered down, dressed up, “I’ll settle and perhaps something better will come along” that most people seem happy to live with. I have always been one who would rather be alone for all the right reasons then to be with someone for all the wrong reasons. OK, yes, I know apparently my way kinda sucks because in truth I have had very few serious relationships ( true love doesn’t come around that often) and the ones I have been in have been nothing but heartbreak for me (if you are going to have a great love they either have to allow you to love them the way only you can or at least believe as you do). Love is a decision, a verb and a state, an action word.
Meatloaf, in You Took The Words Right Out of My Mouth, paints this gorgeous picture of Love on an elemental scale:
It was a hot summer night and the beach was burning
There was a fog crawling over the sand
When I listen to your heart I hear the whole world turning
I see the shooting stars
Falling through your trembling hands
You were licking your lips and your lipstick shining
I was dying just to ask for a taste
We were lying together in a silver lining
By the light of the moon
You know there’s not another moment
Not another moment
Not another moment to waste
You hold me so close that my knees grow weak
But my soul is flying high above the ground
I’m trying to speak but no matter what I do
I just can’t seem to make any sound
And then you took the words right out of my mouth
That is the scale I see love on, no luke-warm for me, and I’ve never wanted to be someone’s plus-one, I’ve always wanted to be their only one! You may have noticed that when I mention love I have it bold, this is because in truth it is how I see love. It is something real to me, something important and not to be taken lightly. It is a word of power, or it should be, and as I said it is a decision, an action! Laugh all you want at chick flicks (I am so addicted to them) and at Twilight, but that is love on an epic scale and something we would all love to experience. Well do you know what? I have experienced that because I have allowed myself to, and I think that if my loves are honest they will admit I made them believe, even if it was just for a little while, in happily ever after, but more importantly, I made them feel! The thing with emotion on that scale is that it is terrifying, its not comfortable, or safe, or controllable. You have to commit and allow yourself to be engulfed by it. Your world and life will be the better for it! It takes great courage but give yourself to someone entirely! Romeo says of Juliet:
O! she doth teach the torches to burn bright
It seems she hangs upon the cheeks of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear-
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows…
Did my heart love till now? Foreswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night
My love is deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have
For both are infinite.
Love like that, without reservation. We all deserve to be loved like that and to love someone like that!
The irony of how their love story ends does not escape me and I’m not advocating killing yourself if you lose your love, but what I am saying is that you should feel like you can’t live without them; the operative word here is feel! Look, even Meatloaf’s epic love song begins on a cautionary note:
Boy:On a hot summer night.
Would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
Girl:Will he offer me his mouth?
B:Yes
G:Will he offer me his teeth?
B:Yes
G:Wlll he offer me his jaws?
B:Yes
G:Will he offer me his hunger?
B:Yes
G:Again. Will he offer me his hunger?
B:Yes
G:And will he starve without me?
B:Yes
G:And does he love me?
B:Yes
G:Yes
B:On a hot summer night.
Would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
G:Yes
B:I bet you say that to all the boys.
But for God’s sake love like that, don’t just like!
We all have this fear of opening ourselves up to someone, to making ourselves vulnerable. It is this fear that prevents us from really, really experiencing our lives, our precious, very short lives, and sharing them with another. We live in a world where we are insulated from everything and where it is frowned upon to believe…in anything. Take a chance and believe in someone but more importantly take a chance and believe in yourself! As I am sure you are aware if you have read my previous posts that I have just gone through a terrible breakup on…yes, an epic scale! But for all the heartbreak, agony and humiliation I have endured, just one moment of the love I shared with that soul I adored was worth it! I loved, I truly loved and I did not hold back and that made all the difference. I experienced what very few people ever do in their lives. I experienced a fairytale love and all encompassing emotion and sensation. No it didn’t end happily but man, what a journey!
I recommend believing and I recommend committing but most of all I recommend having faith: it will make all the difference in your life. If the other person chooses not to continue with your path, to use and old cliche: it really is their loss! Because if you have become a person with the courage to be you then you are someone of great worth and that is their loss. So have faith in yourself and enjoy who you are and if the World is lucky you’ll share yourself out there!