On falling in love
Why falling? Can one not simply walk into love, the way you would enter a store, after having window shopped for a bit, leisurely, with a well timed ding of a bell to announce your entrance? No, love is fallen into, unexpectedly, without much elegance. It is stepped toes and tripped feet, there is no handbook to this complex choreography of tumbling into another person. I would know, because this is how I fell in love — for the first time in my life, might I add. Headfirst, no plan, propelled forward by the sheer momentum of everything.
We met in August. Summer was in full bloom and we could not get enough of each other. Our first three dates were Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, it was dopamine rush after dopamine rush and I was hooked. This feeling was my first impression of love. This version of love hit me like a truck, it was a punch in the gut, but one that I embraced freely with open arms, because I felt joyously alive. When my boyfriend told me he thought he loved me for the first time, it was midnight in Montreal, a month into our relationship. We had just left a jazz show, still riding the high. I thought I loved him too because with him I felt butterflies, sparks, fireworks, or whatever you want to call it. It was very much the uncontrolled free fall that I thought I expected out of love. I told myself, this boy makes me feel such exhilarating emotions, so this must be what love is, the sheer intensity of feeling.
First impressions may be misleading at times. But even then, they leave lasting impressions.
Two months in, and it is October now. The weather has cooled, and the initial intensity of the relationship had settled but still lingered steadily. We would go work out at the gym together, and just seeing him wait for me in front of the gym would make me giddy. We were still in the stage of wanting to learn everything about each other, and naturally, every encounter would expectedly end in a late night conversation culminating into a midnight McDonald’s run. One night after working out, a few days before I am set to leave for Japan, we talk outside my car. We linger for longer than necessary, until he gets into my car and shares something deeply difficult and personal. Both he and I have written about this previously and so I will not linger on this for too long. But that night, before I knew what he was going to say, I decided to myself that no matter what he said, I would still feel the same way about him. I told myself, this boy makes me feel such strong, unwavering emotions, so this must be what love is, the depth of feeling.
In the months that passed, winter settled and along with it, real life problems that became difficult to ignore for both of us. We have had our own separate moments of unhappiness with issues in our respective lives. But as always, when we were together, happiness was still easily accessible, it painted a temporary mask over the abrasive nature of reality. The transient nature of this comfort did not detract from it’s value, these happy moments in between got me through many difficult periods this winter. And beyond these fleeting moments of distraction, my boyfriend remained a constant presence of unwavering support. I slowly learned we could rely on each other, and trust one to support the other when the weight became too much to bear for just one person. He was steady and anything but transient.
On the surface, surely this must be a nice thing. But dig a little deeper, and this easily becomes terrifying, at least to me. Without being conscious of it, I was becoming increasingly vulnerable to the possibility of this boy, a mere stranger 6 months ago, taking the pieces of me that I handed to him one by one over the past few months, and dropping them completely and unexpectedly. That is a lot to give away to a single person, and it is a lot for a single person to hold.
In the last few months, I have kept this fear bottled deep within, and it emerges in bursts as impromptu tears, which I am sure has left my poor boyfriend quite confused in the middle of many shopping mall food courts. He would encourage me to let it out, but I who did not understand what it was that I was crying over, did not know what it was that I was meant to let out.
Over the weekend, I figured it out. I don’t know if I want to write about it tonight, or save it for another post, it involves some permutation of meditation, the buddhist’s views on attachment combined with the good old fashioned strategy of phoning up my girlfriends and talking it out. But know that it is now resolved. First within me, then yesterday I mustered up the courage to share it with my boyfriend. He listened to everything I had to say, and throughout it did not make me feel judged. It was not easy, but at the end we felt more connected for it. Most importantly, I feel like I have progressed as an individual, and become more aware within myself. As my boyfriend would say: I have shifted the needle. But there is much more work that needs to be done.
Tonight we went to the gym. When I showed up, my boyfriend was already at the shoulder press machine. He told me to take the machine next to him and we worked out. He did his leg machine, I did mine, and in the end we met up at the bikes. We went to our respective change-rooms and called it a night.
This relationship has evolved very much over the course of the last 6 months. And evolution is terrifying because it invites the possibility of uncertainty, of loss, and of the uncertainty of loss — arguably the most terrifying of the three. Change constantly challenges the first impressions we have, the ideals we believed to be true and unwavering, and into which we have planted our flag poles. And this is scary. We put labels on things, call things by invented names, like a honeymoon phase, being on a break, because want to know what comes next. We crave predictability in the things that are the most unpredictable in this life. Love being one of them. But what can we do but live it out, embrace the uncertainty to such an extent that it fades into the background like the ticking of clock, as all constant, unavoidable things eventually do. It is the only way to live, and arguably the only way to love — such that we don’t deprive ourselves from the opportunity to experience love at it’s fullest, simply because we were too busy keeping an eye on the time.
While we were on the bikes at the gym tonight, Marcelo said one thing to me. He tells me, trust in your gut and in your head. Not your heart.
As much as the heart wants it be, not every day will be perfect. Some days, you feel disconnected from your partner, some days you are head over heels in love. It is scary for the heart to not always get what it wants or expects, and yet we must keep it open. On days when it is difficult for the heart to do so, the brain reminds us that love can also a choice as much as it is a feeling — and some days, we simply have to follow through until tomorrow. The uncertainty of this is scary, but our gut tells us to be patient, it reminds us that there is something good here, and to possess it fully, one must live through all the seasons instead of chasing summer after summer.
Today, Marcelo and I worked out side by side in silence. I thought to myself, I have loved this boy long enough to have had not good or bad, but simply different days with him. This must be what love is, the feelings that remain with the passing of time, how they can’t help but fluctuate, and yet how we still choose to open our hearts despite it.