With the present, I'm almost superstitious about even considering hypothetical situations. As if, should my mind dwell on a bad one, quantum entanglement or existentialism or some other potential reality of "mind over matter" will assert itself, and I will inadvertently cause that idea to manifest itself.
Part of this was recently explained/validated for me in one of the later Dark Tower books by Stephen King; I don't remember which. In it, he was discussing love. Romantic love, between adults. And he described something to the effect of how if you find it, you can't believe the universe would have allowed you to be so fortunate and that it could be yanked away at any minute. Sorry for the sappiness, but that's how I feel about Chris. Every single day, I am struck - usually in small ways - by the fact that I somehow found the perfect person for me, someone I love and like and can't imagine not living with for the rest of my life. Even after all these years, it doesn't seem quite real.
And that part of me that doesn't believe I have found and could keep something so wonderful insists (constantly) that he could be gone in a moment. The news - now on 24/7 on tv and the internet and magazines and newspapers - only reinforces the voice screaming at me that it's all terribly fleeting and unsafe and unpredictable. So I tell him I love him. A LOT. Like if I go upstairs, or out to the kitchen, or out to check the mail, or to the grocery store or to fill up my gas. I say it multiple times a day. And I mean it.
But on the flip side, there are a lot of people in my life with whom I find myself vocally paralyzed when it comes to expressing my love for them. I love them. SO much. And the same worries about losing them apply equally. I always feel the love. Sometimes - rarely - I verbalize it. But (I think) because I didn't have such a hurdle to overcome with them like I did with Chris, saying it that first and hardest time, when it was so terribly fraught with meaning and fear and confusion, it's more like love is the status quo and should be understood. And so my general Failure To Communicate, combined with the lack of urgency/deadline/expectation to make the declaration by some finite point in time has rendered it nearly impossible for me to say to almost every other human I know.
And it drives me crazy and hurts and makes me feel awful that I can say, "I love you," 20 times a day or more to Chris and the kitties and Sam (and - because I made a concerted effort to make it a habit - to Liam and Rebecca). But I just can't seem to do it with anyone else, even the people I wish it was the same kind of habit with.
So if you're reading this, I love you. Even if you are a stranger and have no idea who I am. I love you and think you are special and important, and I am glad our lives have intersected however they may have done; I wish you all the best.
And if you are personally known to me and part of my "real" life, I'd like you to know that I'm working on actually saying these things to you out loud, hopefully on a regular basis. I wish I could better explain why it is that I can't do it now. And in the meantime, please accept this as my expression of the things I feel and cannot say.
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3 comments:
Next time I see you (I have to believe there will be a next time) I am going to give you a great big hug. If I may be so forward to say..I love you too!
I was recently looking through a bunch of memorabilia from my teen years that my mom had saved for me. It struck me that I used to be much better at keeping in touch with people and letting them know I cared. Its something a person has to keep working on.
I'm glad you still post periodically and are still here so I can drop by and cyber-visit you :-)
I love YOU, Laura. I believe there will be a next time, too. Heck - I have a passport now, and have never been to Canada!
I'm not been good at keeping in touch with people. Facebook helps immensely, but I still procrastinate; often to the point of flaking on people. But with most folks I genuinely care about, it often ends up being a more extreme form of procrastination. Any friend I've cared enough about to reconnect with later down the line has turned out to be someone who I feel comfortable with almost immediately, even years later.
When that happens, I want to kick myself for losing touch with someone I like and resonate with that much, but it also reassures me. I think that due to my personality type, my connections are more about the *person* and less about current events/history. An individual I vibed with once is someone I will probably always vibe with, and the rest is just stuff for us to talk about. Drifting for a bit and losing touch doesn't, for me, equate to losing the relationship. I know this isn't the case for a lot of personality types, and I've come to terms with the fact that my behavior will never be acceptable to them (and vice versa).
I really am a hugger, so be forewarned for our future visit! It might be a case of a big hug and then a massive awkward silence from me, but I'll be there in the quiet.
I like that idea, 'once our personalities have found a sympathetic vibration, time and space don't matter, the vibration will still be there when we see each other again'.
You know I spent years doing infrared spectroscopy when I was a chemist? Simply put, the bonds in molecules are always vibrating. You can measure the wavelength of energy (in the Infrared region of the spectrum) and interpret what kinds of bonds are present in the molecule. Very powerful! So, that is why love this vibration analogy...it resonates with me. (Resonance is another favorite word of spectroscopists- I know, I'm a complete nerd, that is why you love me LOL.)
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