The hole in the word love

There have been millions of poems, songs, movies and stories made on ‘love’. What is it about ‘love’ that causes people so much happiness and pain at the same time? So many risks are taken and in the end we get shattered. On certain days, its difficult to pick ourselves up from the bathroom floor and continue on with our lives. Today was such a day for me.

A couple of months ago, I ended things with someone I deeply love and respect. We had been through a lot together, there were a few good days and many bad days. It would be wrong for me to use the word ‘ended’, sometimes things are never said, just mutually understood. Each time I took the phone to pick up his calls, I felt what I felt when I was with him. There was more spark in us when we had nothing going on than there was when we had something with each other. I can’t really say if we ever ‘ended’ our relationship. He just left one day as he wanted to tour around my country.

So after that we lived off long distance phone calls and I told myself things were over between us. A part of me wanted him to leave the country and go back home where he had come from, to make things easier for both of us. We were not together, nor were we out of love. I can’t speak for him, he never told me that he loved me, nor did I. We preferred not speaking about ‘us’, or giving what we had a label. I think what we had thrived off mostly was sex. But then there was also the heated arguments we used to have on music. He thought I took music too seriously. “It’s really simple”, he said, “Some ass writes some song when he is drunk or stoned and poor little naive you thinks he is writing the story of your life”. It is true,  I do take music very seriously. I think most of my feelings are recorded on albums. We spent hours listening to Beethoven’s symphonies followed by Pantera, we just listened and never said a word. There was something about the silence. I felt I communicated more with him in silence than I did with words.

A couple of weeks ago he left the country. I kept myself busy when he left, I knew there would be no more phone calls. I know soon the emails would stop too. And we will become strangers. As Bob Dylan said in ‘Just like a woman’,

” I just can’t fit, Yes, I believe it’s time for us to quit, When we meet again, Introduced as friends, Please don’t let on that you knew me when I was hungry and it was your world.”

Today I feel no pain, I feel hollow, I spent my day sitting on the bathroom floor, with no tears in my eyes nor hope left in my heart. What I miss most is the silence that existed between us, now the words in my head leaves me empty. I have always jumped into love without thinking twice about the consequences, I have believed that it’s important to feel happiness and pain to gain human experiences. I get into relationships that I know would one day end. I believed that if that fleeting happiness lasts me a couple of months or a week I’ll take it. Then comes the pain. The pain of loss. I take that too. Today I’ve lost hope. I never believed in fairy tales or that love would last me a lifetime, but I think I’ve dealt with more pain than happiness. What saddens me is that people around me allow love to embrace them for years, for me its always a momentary happiness. Alfred Tennyson once said, “It’s better to have loved and lost then to have never loved at all”.

I have always thought that the love that bound a couple together into marriage would eventually fade away. I don’t think I’m right anymore. I don’t think love is ever fleeting. I don’t think you can ever truly stop loving someone. I envy couples who have stuck together for years and depend on each other for their happiness. I never let ‘love’ define my happiness. I don’t know what defined my happiness. But I do know today Bob Dylan defines my sadness,

“Ah, you fake just like a woman,
You make love just like a woman,
Then you ache just like a woman
But you break just like a little girl.”