On Tucking a Full Heart Into An Empty Bed
February 14, 2006 by discocisco
In the age of my emotional Neanderthalism, I used to wonder about love. Fueled by coffee bought in public houses and writing firmly with mechanical pencils stolen from the workplace, I wrote earnestly about the wonderful things that I would do – and about the wonderful thing that I would become – if ever I became so blessed.
Under pressure, even chance and circumstance beget love, so it’s no surprise that I found it – and that I found it again, and then again – every subsequent time becoming more thoroughly convinced that I was closer to becoming that perfect, beautiful thing that love was supposed to turn me into.
I realize now that instead of searching to the corners of my own soul for love, I was mining the patch of dirt I had been given. And a man of that cave, I became. I should count myself lucky that I didn’t come out empty-handed.
Love has never made me better. It’s made me happy, sure – but it’s never made me better.
I don’t think about love anymore, at least not like that. Because it isn’t the product of a search or the fruit of some labor – even one just mentally undertaken. It’s like water – it fills holes, but it doesn’t patch them. It doesn’t give things shape, it just fills things up.
Love is like an ocean in which we swim.
And oceans never freeze. Ever.
4 Responses to “On Tucking a Full Heart Into An Empty Bed”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Are you talking about loving or being loved? Also, do you mean just romantic love, or do you include for example the love of friends and passionate interests in things? As someone who knows you (if i was ultra cool i’d map out our XFN realtionship here but we know i’m not ultra cool so i won’t) I would say that you aren’t hurt by loving, either in the romantic sense, the sense of friendship, or the sense of loving what you are doing. You are a passionate person who loves in abundance and with abandon sometimes.
You get hurt when the love is not returned to you. It’s about being loved. The big question of course is why must love be returned to be gratifying? Sure, on a saturday night when the music is pumping and there is that familiar itch down below, we know the need to be loved, but in a more cosmic sense all you have power over is your own love. If love is not returned, that is one of the greatest sources of beauty in the world. The tragedy of the broker circle is the joy of the passionate lover, brave despite all oppostion. Plus, if they don’t love you, f’ them. Who has time for the thankless?
BTW, your friends love you. Even though you won’t return our emails.
should have been “the tragedy of the broken circle” above.
oceans freeze. love dies. center doesn’t hold yada, yada. but luckily you’ll always have the Eagle Beer Bust. yee-fuckin-haw.
and oh. my. gawd.
you eat tongue.
(i’m silently judging you…)
speaking from my own humble experience, it seems to me that both the love you showed me and the love you allowed me to give did in fact make me a better person, both then and now — though, granted, still far from a perfect one…can you really be lucky to not have come out empty-handed from your experiences without somehow becoming better? and, while i’m thinking about it, i would even argue that love can patch holes — under the proper circumstances, not the least of which being enough time to dry — as well as give things shape, in accordance with the degree to which they are or are not flexible and receptive — not to mention courageous…of course, i’m writing all of this incredibly late at night, so it’s entirely possible that i’ll wake up tomorrow afternoon and realize that i’ve gotten it all totally wrong…