2003-11-07
2003-11-07 - 4:59 p.m.
Join with me in a weekend pledge:
I will not be depressed about shit I cannot control.
No, instead let's root for the Kings tonight and get sozzled at a divey bar. Much better solution.
Pictures of Batgirl on Monday! 2003-11-07 - 3:04 p.m.
Are Milky Way bars just Three Musketeers with a layer of caramel? Inquiring and bored minds want to know.
2003-11-07 - 9:48 a.m.
Love means pain. Yes, I wrote that.
Helen reminded me vividly that it's the small details of sharing life with others that makes love important. Over at Ator's site today, I left a comment about comfort food. My dad stayed home to cook my first meal after I was released from the hospital and trying to re-learn how to walk. That was so clearly an act of love.
So why do I - and so many other people - associate love with pain? Because, damn it, it's work. There is nothing easy about loving someone.
It would be one thing if we were only talking about romantic love. Everybody, every adult at least, can tell stories about being screwed over. One of my favorite Aimee Mann lyrics is, "But nobody wants to hear this tale/the plot is cliched/the jokes are stale/and baby, we've all heard it all before." And Howard, in his comments over at Helen's site, made an excellent point. Hollywood shows us the wedding at a movie's close. We see the big bows on a bride's ass and are supposed to think, "Well, now they'll be happy". Bullshit. Marriage is work. Any kind of relationship that means anything is work.
When I say love is pain, I don't mean just romance. And one of the reasons I freak out at the idea of Scratcher saying he loves me is because if he's one of the people who thinks good sex means love, I won't be able to stick around. He doesn't know me well enough yet to love me.
Love to me means admitting you're wrong. To family, to friends, and to lovers. It also means trusting that your admission will bring you some help. When I tell someone I love them - and I don't do this casually - I'm also saying Call me if something goes wrong. I'm asking them to share the good and bad shit. I'm telling them that their struggle isn't single. If I love you, I'm offering to share your burden and your triumph.
Parent and child. Lovers. Friend to friend. Passion for passion, no matter what kind. That's love. Miss Beek stuck with me years ago when my shitty behavior pushed everybody else away. That's love. J drove two hours to Daddy's house to drop off a couch for me on a day he'd already worked 12 hours. That's love. Mom spat out the pills and stayed alive. That's love.
Think about it. Helen's right. It's not the big things. Let me give you a backrub after a bad day. Feed my cat while I'm on vacation. I'll take my allergy medication so my sniffles don't keep you awake. Fold my wrinkly laundry out of the dryer. I'll bake your favorite gingerbread for Thanksgiving. Let the dogs give me kisses before you do.
It's all love.
But trusting someone enough to love them also means that you're vulnerable. When they disappoint you, or you them, the pain is of an entirely different kind. I loved J outside of lust, outside of Hollywood. We had built a life together, one that I trusted to keep us both safe for many years to come. We killed it. Pain. The death of trust.
Almost every single person I've ever fully trusted - including Mom, Tall Guy and J - has caused me incredible pain. The solitary exception is Miss Beek, which is why I value her so much. It's not as if I expect the love to be without difficulty. But these people - god, they treat me like shit. Lies. Deception. Cheating. Threats, physical and otherwise. Love is pain. It just is. And yet we keep on offering it to people; every once in a lifetime I meet someone incredible that just deserves to be loved. They're frail, they're faulted. But I love them.
And if you're still reading, so far into this rambling quagmire of a post, there's every chance that I would love you, too.
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