(Steller)
Notes on Love
Published – 06.07.2018
There are some things that I have learned about love recently that I thought I could tell you. Perhaps things you already know, because there are rarely “new” thoughts on love, I imagine, and most of the things that seem revolutionary to me have probably been felt and tackled and cried over a million times before. I think maybe even I knew these before they pounced on me because most things about love are common sense, right? You just don’t see them clearly straight away. Perhaps it’s just the fact you don’t want to know. My method of love is to ignore it until it either goes away or you really can’t stop thinking about it and by the time you gather up the confidence to say something, the person you love has forgotten that they loved you back in the first place, so you both pick up and carry on separately. It’s mainly foolproof. I suppose then, what I’ve learned is that you don’t just suddenly know things, they kind of creep up on you instead. And when you realise, it’s not a sharp pain, like a splinter or a paper cut, but a dull one, like an ache you can’t get over. It just sits in you and curls up like a cat on your diaphragm, taking away your breath and your reasoning. It’s like an unexpected visit from a distant family member - you can’t turn them away, so you allow them in; allow them to take over a part of your small apartment and stay there much further than they’re welcome, because how could you not? That’s how this love feels: unwanted, frustrating, constricting. I close my eyes and count - one, two, three, four, five - and open them but it’s still there, scratching away. I squint, I reason, but it’s unshakeable. I’ve been trying to put it in a box under my bed, but it keeps rolling right back out, discontented with the fact I am pushing it aside. What do you do when you can’t shake it off? What happens when it settles? Do you run away? Do you hide? You surely don’t confront it. That’s why I’m writing to you, because I can’t figure it out. The thing that I’m learning is that there’s no magic eight ball - this life is no John Hughes film, no romantic comedy with a perfect ending. I’m figuring that out now, I guess. No one’s standing outside my window with a boombox. Because if they were, I’d probably just stick my head out and ask “couldn’t you turn it down a scooch? I’m getting on with things in here.”
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