a-soul-in-the-shadows

[a-soul-in-the-shadows]

An Insomniac Bookworm’s Musings about Love

I can’t really remember the first time I started dreaming about love. Maybe I always have.

There is something captivating about having someone beside you, someone you can lean on, someone who can lean on you in return. Perhaps I always yearned for a love that was completely, utterly, and willingly chosen. Because at the end of the day, we all come into this world with some sort of automatic, unconditional love. 

Maybe it comes from our parents, the moment that we are born and they hold us in their arms for the first time - or maybe from a time before we were even born. Maybe it comes from our siblings, who placed their ears in our mother’s growing stomach and squealed when they felt us shift. Or perhaps it comes from the people that just catch a quick glimpse of us, or who we will become; the neighbour who sees our parents painting our room from the window, the stranger giving up his seat in the subway, the doctor who sees our scans -one of many he has seen  before-, the grandmother who excitedly receives the news through the phone. 

And if all else fails, we come into this world with the inborn capability of loving ourselves. 

Because, I have learned, the word ‘love’ can be used for many different things, and it can take many different shapes for each one of us. 

But what doesn’t change is that we all have a yearning for some experience of love.

Why is that? If love is something that we, as a society, have shaped over time?

Who said that love was opening a door, or buying flowers and chocolates on special occasions, or kisses on the cheek (on the hands, on the forehead, on the nose, on the lips), or cuddling to watch a movie on lazy weekends, buying presents, creating surprises, going out on walks, holding hands, staying up together talking nonsense, watching the stars, saying vows, leaving notes for each other, or simply doing nothing in each other’s company.

… Who decided that love was saying ‘I love you?’.

Who created all of these social standards of what romantic love should look like? Because now I have the hardship of figuring out what love actually is, and why I feel like I need it so much.

What happens if my partner is in a rush and goes through the door without kissing me goodbye… Does he love me?

What if he wakes up on a morning feeling like he needs time for himself and feels like my touch is a weight on his shoulders… Does he really love me?

What if he gets so excited talking to friends that I become a momentary secondary plane to him… is this really love?

What if his version of love is so different from mine that sometimes it doesn’t seem like love at all?

Because I have found that I have a specific version of love in my mind that I adhere to… one that has been formed by the people I have met, the relationships I have seen, the media I have viewed, and the books I have read. My perception of love is a product of my culture and the world around me. 

But my boyfriend comes from the other side of the globe. And he has seen a different kind of love. 

I have learned that for him, saying “我愛你” is just as important as saying “I love you”, and that the silence can be just as appreciated as the conversation… even if the silences seem to be too long. I have learned that sometimes love means giving someone space without it meaning that they never want to see you again, and that is ok. I have learned that you won’t be able to cuddle them 24/7, no matter how much you really want to... and that what seems like just a quick hug for you is equal to a show of immense love and effort of trying to speak your love language, even if it’s not theirs…. Especially because it is not theirs. 

Above all, I have learned that sometimes love will hurt, and there will probably be times where it keeps hurting.

And so, I ask myself this question once again… Why do I want love at all?

I don’t really have an answer to this… yet… I just know that now I have to unlearn everything society has taught me about love… because I believe I will never know what love truly is for me until I do. 

But what I do know is that I still want love… I really do. 

I want to wake up to my boyfriend’s face next to mine, and hear him mutter about me stealing the covers under his breath even though he will still tuck me in once he gets up before I do. I want to hug him and have him lift me up in the air as we both giggle like teenagers. I want to doze off in his arms in those afternoons when I don’t really feel like sleeping but his embrace is just too compelling and warm not to. I want him to keep laughing at my accent as I try to learn mandarin, and then patiently repeat the word to me over a hundred times until I get it right. I want him to keep complimenting me when I attempt to put on makeup or something a bit more refined than pyjamas. I want to keep seeing his gorgeous smile when I compliment him in return, even if he denies that the compliments are true (I really should do it more often). 

I truly want all of him… but above all I want to keep having this clarity where I can see that this kind of love is enough. 

Because why does it matter if he buys me flowers if he looks at me as if I hold his world in my arms?

But for some reason there are still days where I do want the flowers… and that his “I love you” holds more weight than in others. And I hate it. I hate that sometimes his love doesn’t seem like enough, even though it is. And I hate that society has done this to me.

I hate that sometimes I look at him and unconsciously wish for a Harry Potter, or a Peeta Mellark, a Jace Wayland, an Edward Cullen, an Adrien Agreste, a Percy Jackson… a sort of prince charming that could never possibly exist, because such a ‘perfect’ person does not exist. 

Maybe perfect is not actually the word, but rather ‘unrealistic’, because I know that these are all fictional characters in stories that would never happen to me, and some I am glad would never happen at all. But I admit that I still squeal like a teenager in the occasional time I can read fanfiction.

I hate how I compare my relationship to something fictional, because it is not fair. It is not fair on my boyfriend, who goes above and beyond every single time, and it is not fair to me… because I am selfish and I want to enjoy being in love, and being in a real relationship with a really nice guy… especially after so many years of being alone. 

But here I am… 6:30 in the morning, not having gone to bed yet because I have all of these thoughts in my head that I couldn’t resist putting on paper because… who would I tell?

To whom can I send my complaint to? Is there a government department where can I go:

 “To whom it may concern, 

Society has f****d me up completely and I don’t even know how to love anymore. Can you do something about it?

Kind Regards,

Me.”

I guess I just really wish that ‘love’ didn’t exist at all… just so that I could create it with him at my side. Maybe that’s all the confirmation I need to know that I love him completely.

And I hope that one day I have the privilege of looking down at our interlocked hands and wish for nothing more… because that will be enough. 

I dream of that day… and maybe that is the first step of letting go of society’s dream of what romance is to find what my version of ‘true love’ really is. 

I can’t wait to finally discover it. 

But until then… I hide all of these wishes from him behind “I love yous”... until we both invent words that suit us better.