February 10, 2013

• The Real Reasons We Love (Valentine's Day)

  When you love me, I only see the outcome of that love. I see how you look when you know you are going to meet me. I hear what you say, and sense vaguely what you don't but what would like to say. I feel what you do for me, and receive your gifts, whether tangible or intangible. But in reality, I am in the dark as to how you truly love me. Because the true reasons for love are in the mind, and somehow rarely make the short journey from mind to tongue.

  Why? Perhaps we feel too obligated, too much pressure, when we know what we really mean to someone. Did you know how you heal old wounds, or fulfill lifelong dreams, or quiet the screaming voices in their head? Did you know how he is drawn to people who look like you just because of the memories you left, how he hears your voice singing to him every time it gets quiet in the evening, how she still smiles every time she thinks of your awkward hellos and good-byes on the phone? Is it too much to hear how he dreams of your future? Of how she just realized the other day that you are her 12-year-old dream come to laughing, embraceable life, and how she misses you so fiercely even though you've never had a full day together? And forget the romantic: think of how his moods so neatly compliment your own, the way her forgiveness and fealty strengthen your weak walk and make you more like your better self, how you quietly marvel at his patience and practicality and wish that you had been brothers and not merely bros.

  Yet somehow all these raw feelings are too much to bring up. I think of how much physical intimacy we partake in and yet how little verbal intimacy ever occurs. How your blog pages burn with the feelings behind your hookups but how those feelings never make it from page to person. We are somehow not ready to tell the truth. Perhaps loves are not ready for it, and the bonds are too weak to sustain the knowledge. I find it a safer world when I do not reveal the specificity of my affection, clouding it in generics and theories. Outbursts are punished. So we play elevator music instead of experimental music, and I suppose we are all the happier for it. But secretly, don't you wonder what you really mean to him? This Valentine's Day, I challenge you to answer, and ask.

  • 5:14 pm
  • 8 Comments