I test you sometimes with questions, accusations, hypotheticals. I pull the pin and let the grenade land where it may. I am able to watch us in these moments; I see myself still playing the victim, wondering why even though I know your answers to be true, it is never enough. I see your frustration as you reiterate your loyalty and your unbroken virtue, again. Occasionally, in the heat of such discussions your gesticulating hands mirror mine. When I see this I am reassured that perhaps as tiring as this game is, my unreasonableness at making you play is forgiveable. That perhaps your hands betray your understanding.
I worry that this cannot last. That I am not entitled to this big love. I have spent so many years believing in my ability to hold a room for a few hours, a table from amuse-bouche to petit-four. But I have known that I cannot do this. On my less than graceful days, my instinct is always to run. To keep driving. To get to the airport. Escape. To prove to you, myself, the world that I was right all along. But I know that is not what I really want, to disappear only to have to begin again. Because if I wasn’t with you, I would still be looking for you. Its just that the longer this lasts, the deeper we go, the more scared I get. Me became we months ago. And since then the stakes haven’t just risen, I am betting the house and you can see my hand.
Over my lifetime, when love has been given freely it has felt too easily won. I have always preferred my love a little colder, dangled before me. Requiring the chase. Without the fight and the drama, the winning has held no value. As though love could be quantified, like blood pressure or the weight of gold.
And adding to this chicken, is the egg that is my fear of being seen. Known. For the cracks in my performance to show. That you might realise I am not all that I hope I am. That sometimes I feel like a fraud. There are days when all I see is that I am weak and messed up and empty and scared. And I want to quit before the spell is broken. Before I inevitably break it. Before you realise that you have been duped.
You have promised to stop biting your nails but I don’t mind. Whenever I think of your hands I am reminded of them gripping the oars that quietly punt us across the Serpentine on a summer afternoon.
And at night when they sweep my back, when they travel along my thighs, I feel loved.
Comments
I sometimes wonder if this is inherently a female trait, because so many of my friends have that same uncomfortable fear. You have expressed with some elegance that desire to run way from something you really want before it's taken from you. I have faith that describing it like this makes in more manageable…
it is in this kind of truth, this kind of raw, cracked open visibility, that we are set free. i know this to be true. and you were one of the people who showed me.your love is a marvelous thing to be witness to–deserving of every bit. xx
this is a raw and vulnerable post which only captures the fragile beauty of true love more realistically. you are so lucky to have found each other, and being in your company is both a real and divine experience xo
Beautiful raw post. Like Leonard says, there is a crack in everything…that's how the light gets in.You are entitled to big love. You are entitled to big love. You are entitled to big love…Yes.
Oh Sas, I KNOW! I used to feel the same thing about Mark – but then I was sitting with a friend on a trip to the States and together we realized that that point where love just IS – where you see each other at your worst but still love each other deeply – is when it is real. You two are real – and you DO deserve it, because you are completely and totally and utterly LOVEABLE!!!
So entitled. And you have variations of big love coming at you from so many.But do I empathise? Hell yeah.
You have described these feeling so beautifully.Choosing that frightening uncharted territory of happiness is a brave move. I hope you will find it, gently.
Oh god, yes. It would be so much easier to run, to back away than to have to live with the knowledge that one day they will realise that they've made a massive mistake. And then you will have to pick up the pieces & start all over again anyway, but this time you will know what you are missing when they walk away in disgust. I get it. I really do. Because if it got fucked up before, what's to say it won't get fucked up again, right?But then what it the one who sees you, really sees you, sees things that you are unable to? Or were toofrightened to admit to? Or couldn't say because it wasn't lady-like or proper? What if the person they see when they look at you is the person they most want to see? Even on days when you're feeling like shit or you're having a bad hair day? What if none of that is what really matters anyway? What if the thing that they love is your shining, beautiful, perfect-just-as-it-is, loving, trying soul?Hmm?We need to dare to have the big love. I have come to see that. Because otherwise, we might be safe, but we wouldn't really be living. And also because a super-fit fox like you absolutely deserves to take that chance.xx
"I pull the pin and let the grenade land where it may", Sas you're so eloquent. This is such a perfect description of that thing we do – feeling cornered and vulnerable we try to release some pressure by making the bomb explode anywhere but inside our heads.
Oh I can relate to so much of this post but could never express it as beautifully as you have.And this? – "Because if I wasn't with you, I would still be looking for you." Perfect.
That really spoke to me…Pearl
Phew. This gave me goosebumps. What a writer!I once lived with an Englishman for seven years, and he was the first one who would commit to me and love me as I was. We used to have terrible rows but I trusted him to always want to fix what we broke. Well, one day he didn't. And left me shattered in pieces. Eight years later I married my American husband, both of us scarred and scared. So much blooming baggage. But our love is real. And big. And yes, it took my moving to the other side of the country to really know this. And to rebuild the trust that got so damaged in our previous relationships. I have wanted to run (and I did a little) but I have also learned what thresholds not to cross this time round. In a few months I am moving back to the east coast to continue our life together and nothing has ever felt so right.Thank you for writing this beautiful and raw post. K.
'Over my lifetime, when love has been given freely it has felt too easily won.' Oh god yes.I thought that this slightly infantile attitude would be something I would grow out of. Here's hoping…I empathise with all of this but give you the same advice Ive been dealing out to myself – 'this is real. Don't fuck it up by playing silly testing games.'x
@judaroo I am not sure that this is infantile behaviour as much as it is me responding to a love I have not been able to reciprocate before now. This post is about me recognising that this love is freely given and deeply valued, but it is unfamiliar and at times uncomfortable. Love makes contortionists of us all.
So one keeps on keeping on.
"If I wasn't with you, I'd still be looking for you."Talk about a lightbulb moment.You have a way of tapping into things and making these raw experiences quite beautiful. xx
wow. this is so amazing and resonates so deeply…thank you.
I know for sure that I struggle with this as well. And I know that it bothers my boyfriend and makes him feel that he's not doing enough to show me that he loves me, but really I know it's my own issue… We sometimes make things more complicated that they need to be…
No hon, Didnt mean you. Was talking about muyself and my attitude in the past certainly was. :s Excellent piece, as always.
@judaroo noted :)
love makes contortionists of us all…that is the thing that gets me through – recognising that i may not be the same shape as i would have been if i had run, given in to the urge to disappear before it all became beyond mebut i stayed and it is ok beyond mesometimes scary and lonely and frustrating but it is also beautiful and rich and expanding…wonderful writing Sas… you are not alone
ps i had just blogged about my beloved then came to your true north post….our road to mutual admiration has not been smooth…
I could have written this. I probably still can. Thank you for saying it.