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[heaventoyou19]

A concept called Love

Growing up, Disney channel presented love to be this beautiful thing that’s obtainable when you have beauty, grace, a pretty face and a good heart with only an evil step mother or some witch as an obstacle. Looking back to when I first started dating, you can say that I was actively looking for Prince Charming to save me from my, oh –so-terrible life. I victimized myself and it wasn’t just because of the shows that my eyes and brain consumed almost daily… I also didn’t have the best role models growing up. That and I didn’t really have anyone to talk to about things encompassing love, what society deems attractive and horrendous, what’s actually right or the difference between love and toxic luggage. I had to run through a lot of case scenarios on my own to actually get an idea of all of this; and from what I can tell – love isn’t really worth the hassle.

I’ve been in relationships before and honestly speaking all throughout those relationships, I’ve only ever felt loved by one of them. Let’s call him, Zachary. He was my first love and I really thought that he would be my last. The only time I pictured my future to have more than just me, myself and I was when I see us marry each other. But that obviously, didn’t happen and what we had really set me up for actual character growth.

All throughout our relationship, we always had obstacles coming from both sides. By the end of our relationship, I was suffering in silence while he avoided me like a plague to solve his problems. He’s a great guy, but looking back, we were just too volatile and toxic for one another. He chose to end our little tango and I will forever be grateful for that. After months, almost eight actually, I realized how much love I was giving and pouring into his cup when my own neck was parched. I lost complete sense of myself and I truly didn’t have an identity because of how much I was breaking down every wall that I had just for him. I thought this was love.

I came to realize now after 19 years, 5 months and 2 weeks of living, how people truly navigate around the topic of love, entitlement, infatuations and lust; using myself as subject #1 under ‘people’.

Throughout my healing process I began to talk to my fellow peers to see if my situation was similar to theirs. Some were, but most had it worse than I did. Slowly I tried to get those peers to talk more. This gave me an insight as to how they managed their love lives; a limited scope but I take what I can get. Using my famous “you can trust me” frontier, you would be surprised at how quickly I could get someone to talk about what’s really going on in their romantic rendezvous. People are usually pretty reserved about the topic and want to maintain the “perfect for each other” exterior but I was really desperate for answers. It was a little manipulative on my part, but I really didn’t mean any harm when we had our conversations. After listening to their stories, I can tell that the one trait we have in common is that we love unconditionally – wait no, blindly. We let ourselves be stepped on like doormats thinking that this is love. Sacrificing our rights and literal self- worth is the measure of how much we love our person. In addition to this, the idea of wanting to complete and be the half of another literal person was something that kept popping up throughout our talks. So, by nature we have this need to fix someone and hence feel needed. And to that, we were legit smack talking their past exes and I’ve witnessed others literally gossip and complain away about their significant other. It got me thinking if this was what will naturally come with “Love”. Losing yourself, losing your cool and your head it’s… is this it? Is my self-worth and well-being worth that little to be traded with a problematic concept that just hinders a person from truly becoming the star that they are?

Sacrificing that freedom and the longevity of our sanity… is it worth it?

I used their stories as personal data to justify my prejudice on love. I wasn’t surprised when I found out that ‘Love” equates to “I want to be the reason why they change,” “they changed because of me,” and the “I’m the one destined to fix them.” As a friend, sister, cousin, girl fresh out of a relationship and  a fellow closeted rational – thinking human being, I can’t help but wonder why – why do we put a lot of significance in fixing someone? It’s not our responsibility to give up our freedom and put other people’s shit onto our plate. And yet, this is normal. Looking back to all of the Wattpad love stories I’ve read back in 8th grade, it was always bad boy meets good girl, good girl fell for bad boy, bad boy hurts good girl, good girl turn cold, bad boy suddenly realizes he loves good girl, bad boy changes for good girl and a whole dramatic sequence of finding true love at such a young age. This way of thinking is literally played out in movies, books, fanfictions and looking at the married couples around me, sometimes I wonder why they’re still together. It sounds harsh but really, it is mind bottling. These are two individuals who live completely different lives and time and time again, I had to watch them comply with the gender norms and get frustrated because of it. Succumbing to the mindset of how love works and how marriage works its… odd. We are expected to shed away our individualistic nature for a label that will only erase our names. If I get married it wouldn’t be, Lilac this or Lilac that- it would be X’s wife did that or Jane’s mother did this. Was all of this worth it for something as unstable as “Love”?

Reflecting on my relationship with Zachary, I realize I never truly needed him when I want to accomplish anything academically. The only thing that followed him each time he returns to my life was endless drama – not the good kind. So, in other words I could still hit great, grand milestones until my very last breath without him – and since he was my first love, then that meant I could breathe without “Love”.  Without love, I still have me, my thoughts and freedom which is worth more than just a concept that may or not be true. Something so changeable with time, that’s what “Love” is. Therefore, I stand by my words , “Love” whatever it is- it’s not really worth it.