So; What Now?
Love is as the poison ivy, seamlessly harmless but in actual fact, very dangerous. A small touch and it messes you up, it spreads a rash on you and nothing is an absolute antidote when you’ve been touched. Money they say is the root of all evil, but you see love, love is the root cause of all ill feelings. No man is immune to its touch, and at some point in life, you would have experienced love of some kind and of some things. I do not just mean the philia or conjugal type of love, I mean love in every form of it. To love at all is to gamble your heart and peace of mind. The acclaimed misanthropes have at one point been burnt by love. I know this because, no one wakes up to become a crusader of hate. Every weirdo/serial killer has a backstory of abuse, of hurt and of pain and all of these bear similitude with the antonyms of love.
These thoughts are fragmented and disjointed, almost parallels. I hope to somehow, magically tie them all together to make complete sense.
The biggest lesson entrenched in my mind and maybe the oldest is; nothing is absolute (maybe life and death), everything is relative. To love is one thing, to be loved is another! To love and be loved and to be happy in love is another thing. To love, to be loved, to be happy and to persist in love is yet another thing.
There are many factors in play, many factors committed to making a mockery of love and it just seems reality is a sad artist, rendering everything, however colorful, however lovely, and however heavenly in calamitous, chaotic and cataclysmic dark ends. Throughout life and the endless search for love, to be loved and to be happy, like searching for the alchemist’ stone is a philosophical mystery that remains unsolved to date. Sometimes it feels like you have it, you found your ace and then you lose it or maybe you never had it. Sometimes you find it in the mouth of a dragon and to slay a dragon is to get burnt and even your best fight doesn’t guarantee you getting it. Sometimes it finds you when you are too broken to try and it leaves you in the filth of your wallow and finds another, deserving or not. I reiterate that I do not just mean the philia or conjugal type of love, I mean love in every form of it. To love oneself, to love and be loved by friends and family, to love your dreams and pursue it, to love life and live it, to love a spouse and be loved right back, but again, nothing is absolute, only death, only loss, only despair and grief. Love would beat you to a pulp, seethe you fine as dust and scatter you to the winds. Yes, the kind of love that breaks you. The kind you cannot have or keep. The kind that haunts you and keeps you awake the rest of your long tortuous life.
You see I understand what I feel now. I read somewhere that, if you let yourself feel it (your feelings) enough, you understand it. 2022 has been about lessons. I have felt everything this year; love, happiness, bliss, gratitude, hurt, pain, grief, loss, heartbreak, sadness, frustration, anxiety, depression. I have cried a lot this year, happy tears and sorrowful ones. I have thrown tantrums and more recently, holed up in my room and screamed till my voice broke. I realized these feelings came from a place of love. Love for myself and a particular special lady I opened my heart to in spite of certain unsurmountable odds, love for my ambitions and desires, love for people and alleviating their pain and my love for peace. When I see people broken, grieving from a loss, confused and torn apart, I identify with that pain. It can only be love and when love meets with needs, it becomes more chaotic. Often times such love is top shelf from the farthest reach of the one who needs it.
I have always been confident of my ability to read people through their words and measure their intentions. I have lived by that creed; to play the game right or never to play at all. You have to know what to throw away and what to keep. Best case scenario, you are lucky enough for the elements to favor walking away. Often times, we realize walking away is best for us, but we are too attached to move. Too engrossed, too committed. It is easier to escape the quicksand if you are knee deep, but you see, often times, we are neck deep and it takes every joule of strength in you to muscle out. You have put everything on the line. Made a home of your situation or relationship. In your career, you have relocated and invested in a new land only for you to have to move again. On your dreams, you have labored and toiled only for national/world economics to necessitate a change. In your relationship, you have ignored prospects, closed doors and burnt bridges. All in all, it seems going back is not an option. You wriggle in pain, wallowing and struggling to breathe and it just seems there is no way out. You have realized now that you have developed a sort of Stockholm syndrome. You would rather stay within the cycle. Developing a sense of empathy and rationalizing or justifying the abuse on your person and altogether, your mental health. In spite of knowing you want and deserve more, you are stuck. Something however keeps taunting you, telling you to get a move on.
SO WHAT NOW?
In spite of this tragic cycle, I see birds perching on scarecrows still. As evil as love is to one’s heart. The damage it wrecks as it opens you up to reckless hopes and shoots you down anticlimactically, I see people being things, doing things, striving and reaching in the name of love. In love and in life, every hand is a winner and every hand is a loser. It is a gamble. Love is, life is. You have to know when to fold up, when to hold up, when to walk away and more importantly when to run. Sometimes people think suicide is some form of martyrdom and it is a brave thing to do. Hell, No. There is no martyrdom in suicide, only stupidity and the blackness of death. No crowns of glory in giving up, only in persistence, in knowing when to fight and when to retreat. When to go all out and when to hibernate and heal. When to walk away from trouble and whatever darkness that threatens to snuff out the little light of yours. When to run from toxicity and perceived evil. When to realize that as long as you live, there is a chance at every hand life deals. The odds are in your favor as long as you are in the game. And persisting through it while applying sense is waiting, biding the time, till you find the ace(s) you can keep for yourself.
