“Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone.” C.S. Lewis
Chapter 2: breathing room
When the love I wanted went and got married in the Fall…it was a smallish, sweet ceremony. And I went, as any good friend would, and I hugged them both and wished them luck; and then I ran from the church. (Okay, not “ran” per se, more of a quick, casual walk.) I made it to my car and then to the highway for my 3.5 hour trip back to Dallas. I blared sad, sappy music, playing every CD I owned that reminded me that pain was good and healthy and necessary for growth (ie. Celine Dion & Hope Floats soundtrack). And I cried…God, did I cry…all the way home.
And just like that, it was over. All the worrying and fretting and anxiousness had been squelched. I vowed to move on with my little life and “get over it” as they say. I put the new couple in my rearview mirror and was determined not to look back – ever!
I graduated from college, moved into an apartment with a friend and tried to start forgetting about how things weren’t going how I had planned. But the more I tried to forget, the worse it got. I was melancholy, much moodier than I am now, and sad. And I went to a lot of friends’ weddings. That summer I think I attended 6 weddings, plus a few more the following Fall. I smiled and was happy for them, but for me…well…
I got to thinking that I maybe wasn’t meant to be married. I hadn’t had such good luck with men – trying to figure out what the hell they wanted! And if I wasn’t going to get married, then there was no point in dating…or wanting to date. I worked hard to make myself believe that I didn’t want what I really wanted. It really is a miserable existence. I don’t recommend it.
And the moral of this story is that pain can make you do silly things like listen to Celine Dion over and over and over again. It can drive you to ridiculous ends. Pain is often unrelenting, and completely unavoidable, particularly when you have a big heart that is eager to love and be loved.
Real love is so very existential – you have to give it to know you are getting it. That is not to say that you give love to get love, but you give love to know that you are already being loved. By knowing what it is to love someone else, the true nature and definition of how to best love someone, you can discover for yourself how others may love you.
Complicated, but so pure.
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about me
i'm jenn. i'm 30 years old and still trying to figure out what i want to be when i grow up. i'm open to suggestions...
4 comments:
perhaps we should say that our plans don't always work out the way we plan, because I think love is always good, though at times misguided.
(I love that you know who I am writing about and that you know me - how I was and how i am now. It's hard for people who are just meeting me to understand the transformation)
I thought I knew pain...Celion Dion...wow...that's a lot of pain.
I loved this post jenn. Mmmmm...you are more honest than you give yourself credit for. It's very awesome.
i agree. really, jenn, i kept this up on my desktop because i reread it a few times.
this part is my favorite: "And the moral of this story is that pain can make you do silly things like listen to Celine Dion over and over and over again. It can drive you to ridiculous ends. Pain is often unrelenting, and completely unavoidable, particularly when you have a big heart that is eager to love and be loved."
i think your story speaks for itself. i think there's no tidy wrap up on it. there's no few sentances that can summarize FEELING. but your abbreviated description of this experience makes me wish i could have been there, makes me wish for the real-life, real-time version of the real thing. i could feel it.
and i hear you. beautiful post, jenn.
its really strange how the thoughts (and feelings) i'm most reticent to share seem not so scary in blog-form. Thanks friends.
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