Triumph.

Today has been a magnificent day (yeah, I know I probably don't say this as much as I should... But, I'm really happy).

The Supreme Courts of California legalized gay marriages :] And according to the privacy protection agreement in the California constitution, all states would be forced to recognize the legality of a same-sex marriage :] I'm really, really, really super happy about this. If one day something happens, I would be able to marry a woman :] And the love that I would share with her would be legally acknowledged.... :]

I was thinking a lot about love today... And I came to a conclusion that may have shocked me if I were a year or two younger. Here goes nothing? After suffering from lack of stable basis for a theoretical foundation on love, I sort of realize the difference between a love that is petty and innocent versus something that is real. While this may seem like an insignificant point to make, it came as a huge realization to me.

Back when I was younger, and I had crushes (guys, girls, whatever...), I would freeze whenever I was near the person... Honestly, it was horrid. While on the one hand, I was unable to approach these people, the feelings that I had for them were so intense that there was no denying that they were real. But how could you like someone that you don't even know?

That got me wondering about the things that I found important in a relationship (or even a simple romantic pursuit). One of them definitely has to be the comfort level that I have with the other person. While I remember the butterfly tummies and sweats of anxiety that I experienced as a kid to be a mixture of agony and bliss, I wonder what I ever got from it in the first place. I associated the word "love" with the people I couldn't talk to. They were the unreachables, and I placed them onto alters that I could barely see the tops of.  If it wasn't anything but the simple kid feelings, then the feelings I had must've far extended beyond my years; they were so much more than I could handle at the time.This isn't love, is it? And it never was? Then what was it?

Then it hit me. This wasn't love at all. I never loved any of these people who gave me squiggly legs and shrilly greetings with my friends (and nothing else). They were images of what I thought I should love. Then I remembered perhaps one of the most important aspects of these childhood crushes that I had. I never really wanted anything to do with them. Ever. Not a single one of them. I think it was just really nice to have someone to think about at night, and dream of. I wasn't fully ready to face the responsibility and reality of being in a relationship. And so, because I so desperately wanted one (although it scared the living shit out of me), I idolized a person instead. I made him or her untouchable, and "loved" this person so that I didn't have to face prospective loneliness.

Now, I base my relationships and the levels of love that I have for another person on something that makes more sense to me. Comfort. I realize that in recognizing my desire to have a relationship, I cannot simply remain stagnant in the face of the untouchables. I cannot create pedestals for them to stand on, because in all the times that I'd done it before, it was a defense mechanism I keep myself safe.

How do you fall in love?
First, choose a person you're most comfortable with.

A Betrayal of the Mind

My guards are back up. Paranoia has reentered my life, but now it’s affecting my relationships with other people, too, particularly with him. When I close my eyes my mind flashes into scenes of his betrayal. I find myself following the fantasies that my mind creates, and I get angry. I can’t trust him anymore. I lust for the knowledge of his past, of all the things that I don’t know about, that he lied about, that he refused to tell me.

I’m scared. I’m willing to accept that he lies to me, but somehow that’s not good enough. I want to grow callous again, to all the emotions that I was too weak to turn away from. I don’t want to be so vulnerable anymore.

I know I’m not beautiful. I know I’m not good enough. I know of my emotional instability. And I certainly know that I’m not capable of dealing with life anymore. I would say that I want to die, but I don't consider myself a pansy; I'm going to work this out with myself, though grudgingly.

I start to scare myself when I stop to think about the things that I say.

These past three weeks have been the most life altering mind fuck I’ve had in a while. I feel myself slinking back into a state of frenzy, and it’s scary. I don’t think I’ve been this upset with myself since that last person I screwed over with my battle cries.

Nothing I do is innocuous.

Last night, I had a really strange dream that I was in a video game world, but it was set in my house. I killed nearly everything that I needed to in order to get out of the world, except for this zombie queen woman that just wouldn’t die no matter what I did. I got scared and hid in the closet in one of the rooms in my house. It was then that she told me that the portal out of the dream was in the basement. So she opened the closet and was about to attack me and my dream transitioned into me waking up in the same room… In the bed I slept in when I was a little girl. The funny thing is, I knew that I was dreaming the entire time that I was, and I was trying to wake myself up throughout. It was scary being trapped in my mind with no escape. 

I woke up (for real this time) thinking about Descartes’ meditations.

Please tell me that my life, too, is simply a dream.

Dance of the Stars

When shining dreams within the sky appear,

So deceitful,

So graceful,

I remember the days,

When another soul lay beside me

To watch the dreams shine bright.

Memories of roads, of moons, of trees

Dancing to the light of our dreams

Shatter my innocence

And sever my heart;

These trees are gone,

The roads repaved,

The moon no longer shines.

Yet still, the dreams are there,

Quietly listening,

Hearing my every word,

My beckons of loneliness

Calling out to touch my soul again.

I’ve misunderstood

My every dream

And have forsaken my life,

For a moment in which

I can no longer remember.

All that is here beside me now

Are the stars that shine.

The Myth of Love.

Quite simply put, isn't it?
Not quite so.

If you weren't able to catch it, the reason why I claim love as a myth is because it's such a paradoxical emotion. I'm sure that everyone who has been related to the emotion can contend to the pure torture, but the beautiful payback of it all. Sometimes, the torture is literal, and one ends up beaten by the person she claims to love. Still, in these situations, it is quite common to hear this person claim eternal love to he who beats her. In other, less severe situations, love is simply difficult to manage and becomes a stressor to those who are involved. Sound stupid? Absolutely not.

Why are we so irrational when it comes to love? What is the motivation, and is it worth the cost (mental and perhaps physical)? Why are we so driven to falling in love?

Perhaps the most obvious answer to the first in my series of questions is that people simply enter love without fully understanding the implications. In the modern day, love is characterized by a strong emotional tie that one shares with another person that allows one to develop with the company of another who's life is fueled by the same strong emotions. What do we have in this equation? Two different people, coming together and uniting through a strong emotion that (probably) neither of them understand. The problem is almost obvious before it's emerged. It doesn't surprise me that this equation (two people + strong emotion + lack of understanding + rash decisions = problems) has lasted throughout the years, even in great literary works.

One emotion that is often an implication of love is jealousy. This is seen in Shakespeare's Othello, where the issue of love is examined through the main character, Othello, a Moor who is in the Venetian army, and his wife, Desdemona, the daughter of a Venetian senator who disapproves of their marrige. Between their love is Othello's "front man" of many years, Iago, who is vengeful and goes out to destroy Othello's marriage. Throughout the play, it is obvious that Otello and Desdemona love each other, but although their love is true, it is based on the irrational understanding of each other (Desdemona loves Othello because of all the war adventures he had been through and Othello loves her for being able to pity him). Yes, they have strong emotions, but because there is a lack of understanding involved, and they are both new to the game of love, Iago easily drives Othello jealus and manipulates him to murder his wife, which is an entirely rash decision that defies all logic in Othello's character. What drove it? Strong emotion, strong love, followed by a lack of understanding and the addition of jealousy. "A man who loved too well."

So what exactly motivates us to fall in love is the implications are so severe? (Though I'm sure not all of us are inclined to murder our spouse if infidelity is suspected. Of course, the modern day murder is not of a body, but of the marriage through divorce.) Sex? Money? The power we can harvest from another person's life?

Surprisingly, it's none of these. As an idealist, I personally believe that we fall in love because the obstacles are what make it beautiful and worth having in the end. Love helps us grow, because it is (or has been, or will be) the greatest source of pain in a person's life at certain given moments. How else can you grow? If you never leave your comfort zones, you'll never be able to develop yourself. Love pushes our boundaries. Love destroys our self and builds a new one by our understanding of another person and our perception of their understanding of us. Love kills to reinvent.

All of this sounds morbid, but it's actually a really optimistic thought to have. I seriously consider love to be the greatest gift I've in my life.

Time to make a change.