number 4

All throughout my life, I never understood how somebody could love multiple persons simultaneously. It still remains, in my mind, one of the biggest hypocrisies a human being could commit. Furthermore, how unjust to the persons involved in the subjects affections. How are they to know if the love this person has for them will not waver, then fall onto another? I myself have experienced this, and this, I think, is why I now find it so difficult to sustain a long lasting and healthy relationship. It’s not that I mistrust people, by any means. On the contrary, I find that in matters of affection, I’m quite naïve and over willing to pour the deepest secrets of my heart out to a person I’ve only known a short while. So why, in this short life I have experienced, do I have such a skeptical and rather cynical view of love?
I think it all began when I first fell in love. Sure, I had loved others before, but that was only the type of love that is like an explosion. The hormones rage for a while, then all of a sudden, all mutual affection has vanished. This is what I thought love was, as do all young persons of my generation. No, my first experience with love happened gradually. People always say that love at first sight does not exist, that love itself must spring first from pure unadulterated lust. That upon that first sighting, it is the lust for that person that prompts a desire to become closer to them, and only then do feelings of affection and deep spiritual and emotional attachment grow. Finally, the end result is what we call love. But I disagree with this idea that romantic love depends completely on first having lustful feelings for another human being, whether emotionally or physically.
No, my first interactions with this person I speak of were entirely love at first sight. I do not think I could explain how it felt exactly, nor do I think I would want to, for this feeling is so pure that trying to describe it would only taint and soil it. So I will leave it at that.
I loved this person from the moment I saw them. They were always in my mind. What was different about this love, though, was that we two were always entirely honest with one another, sometimes brutally so. I was so heartless with said person, yet I felt no guilt, so remorse, no fear of rejection from them because I knew that our minds were one and the same. I have always deeply appreciated having the truth told bluntly to my face, though I would never let anybody catch on to this amusement to my own faults. I act defensive and throw back the javelin with clever rhetoric and wit. Persons of the same mind as I can always catch the secret laughter in the undercurrent of my cutting remarks. They too unintentionally remark in the same manner. Those who do not understand this manner of banter think of it as pure bitterness, a show of self loathing and a low self esteem on the part of the speaker. But we of like minds know different. Perhaps it is the way our brain processes language that we can detect the small, but completely strong undertones of a word. We know what the speaker is truly thinking behind the mask of their words. And this, I think, we find extremely amusing. It’s like a secret language that only the initiated understand.
But, lo, this person was taken from my life like so many others, at least physically. Yet always after I could feel their presence with me always, like a ghost walking beside me. Memories from the past replay in my mind constantly and if they had happened only moments ago. It’s maddening at times, like a never ending movie reel, or a melody that replays eternally in ones mind. It’s a blessing and a curse. I find small comfort in the fact that though they are not with me physically, their spirit can still inhabit the empty space by my side. Perhaps my immediate and permanent emotional attachment to certain persons enables me to bring a part of them with me when I leave them. I do not yet know if this is a blessing or not.
After that first (and still extremely present) love, I began to develop a sort of fondness for somebody else that had always been in my life, but never played much of a part. It’s like when one discovers somebody they had always known was there, but had never really seen. My experience with this discovery was breathtaking. And by this, I mean literally. It seems that I had laid eyes on this person for the first time. My heart stopped and my body froze. Yet a wave of complete contentedness washed over my being and I felt like nothing could ever hurt me again.
After this experience, this person never left my thoughts, not even once. Always they were there, and as a result my longing to constantly be at their side grew stronger every single day. When I finally attained the few minutes of being in their presence, my heart ached when I thought of the fact that, eventually, I would have to let them go. In preparation for this inevitable moment, I would close my eyes and preserve my time spent with them. It’s like I would condense the entire time (whether it be minutes, hours, or days) into a single concrete moment, then freeze it. After I left them, I could still feels their touch on my arms, their smell, their voice in my ear, and their breathe near my skin. This, I think, is what made my captivity more bearable. I still had my greatest love with me always, and I also had the ever present phantom by my side, echoing shadows of our past.
Still I carry both of these with me, a memory and a ghost. But these comforts wrack my mind and heart with guilt, for I absolutely can not let go of these still present loves from my life so that I may now embrace my happiest of conditions. My greatest companion waits for me, and I do love them with my whole being. Yet these past shadows still hold part of my love so strongly that they have being part of my own spirit. How can I reconcile all of these emotions, all of these different beings so that I may free my spirit from the torment I experience every single day? Nobody seems to have an answer for me.