Love, actually?

Today I had the silly notion to look up love in the thesaurus, to investigate, inquire, elucidate, and perhaps pontificate on the kinds and qualities and misappropriations and justifications for using this word for a feeling. After all, it’s such a very big word. It’s so all-encompassing in fact, that these are the synonyms I found. I kid you not:

adoration, very strong liking, adulation, affection, allegiance, amity, amorousness, amour, appreciation, ardency, ardor, attachment, cherishing, crush, delight, devotedness, devotion, emotion, enchantment, enjoyment, fervor, fidelity, flame, fondness, friendship, hankering, idolatry, inclination, infatuation, involvement, like, lust, mad for, partiality, passion, piety, rapture, regard, relish, respect, sentiment, soft spot, taste, tenderness, weakness, worship, yearning, zeal 

adore, like very much, admire, adulate, be attached to, be captivated by, be crazy about, be enamored of, be enchanted by, be fascinated with, be fond of, be in love with, canonize, care for, cherish, choose, deify, delight in, dote on, esteem, exalt, fall for, fancy, glorify, go for, gone on, have affection for, have it bad, hold dear, hold high, idolize, long for, lose one’s heart to, prefer, prize, put on pedestal, think the world of, thrive with, treasure, venerate, wild for, worship

Good grief, no wonder we’re confused.

Just as there is no manual that can assure we will be good enough parents, there is nothing that assures us success in intimate relationships, despite our best efforts or whether or not our parents were adequate role models. There are too many variables in each human life to account for simplistic reductions.

If we hearken to the din of our ever-present media, and heaven knows it has a very loud and persuasive voice, aren’t we all but doomed? The media would largely have us believe we must sustain a romantic ideal, a fairy tale ending. If we learn about relationships from a script however, isn’t it almost certain we will fail to be in touch with anything remotely close to who and what we, in our essence – our heart of hearts – truly are? We might, for example, find ourselves compromised until the person we were, that unique individual drawn to another in order to share this thing called love becomes a shadow, a ghost of what once was genuinely, unequivocally and delightfully us. Resentment would cloud vision on both sides as the future we attempted to build as a couple crumbles to cinder.

If we expect another to fulfill an ideal, aren’t we bound to be disappointed? It takes a great deal of energy to hold ourselves equal to another’s illusions. As women, it may keep us infantilized and powerless. I cannot speak for men, though I would imagine it proves debilitating and exhausting. There is no room for power plays when we seek equal footing, and no room for pedestals in a long-term relationship. Living in close proximity to another helps clarify both our highest and basest qualities. Owning this, being open and willing to grow with these painful realizations, along with the support and loving acceptance of another, can help us mature in unexpected ways.

What would you do, how would you present yourself, if tomorrow you and your lover parted? Would you go back to school, dye your hair green, get a full body tattoo or the job you always wanted? If the life you are living and the life you dream of are radically divergent, you may have lost touch with this essence I spoke of earlier. And the only one with the power to get your life back on track is you. If I live fully, if I make choices as though my life matters both independently as well as in relationship – meanwhile allowing the same freedom for my beloved, I enjoy a stimulating, successful union. This always seems to require many adjustments over time, and conciliation can be tricky. It cannot succeed with me losing myself to the needs and/or demands of another. It does require, however, that I learn to dance, and occasionally toes get stepped on in the process. I can groan in pain or realize it as a minor misstep. Sometimes both realizations occur simultaneously, and it’s a split-second decision as to which is more important. However as I practice, I get better at knowing where these metaphoric toes are, both mine as well as my partner’s. As my significant other does the same, we deepen in love and understanding.

Of course nothing can be reduced to simple platitudes when it comes to human interaction. Yet it seems to me that expecting love to ever be romantic is to insist another transport us into fantasy. And although this might be a welcome respite from time to time, I don’t think it can sustain over the long term. Being fantasy, it eludes reality. So while it can be dessert, the main meal – our daily sustenance – comes from consistently holding one another in the bonds of deep friendship and caring, of sharing a life best lived together.

 

The Princess Bride