I remember I used to believe in love. I believed in love so much. But was it like the songs say, “what I thought was love, that must have been lust,” and “I thought I knew what love was, what did I know”? It might have been that in truth, I was kidding myself in thinking that that was what I was so about: love, love, love. I look back now, and I see those times in my past when I was so sure that I knew what love was, where I defined it, described it, said what it was not — and I look now, now that I am a little older, a little wiser, and realize I have no idea what it really is. And when I did, it was like the blind men describing the elephant, one feeling the trunk and saying it was like a snake, one feeling its side and saying it was like a wall. Except that I’m not even sure I was feeling any part of love at all, perhaps only poking around my own illusions, ascribing value to things that never really were.
Shall I believe in love again, now that I know I don’t know? Perhaps that is the true revelation in discovering what love really is — you’ll never have a clue. Each person who says, “I love you,” is saying something completely different from the other person; and it will be heard by someone who understands it in a completely different way than the one who said it. Yet somehow, it works out, at least sometimes. Why I can write about it at all (why it is written of so many times): even if they are all different, we all have an idea of it. Within us, if we care to look, is the candle that is love, whether we choose to light it or no. And how wonderful that we all perceive this mystery of mysteries in an original way — that is what truly makes us human, the way we love. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.
So where does that leave me? It might be that I still believe in love, and have always. And maybe it doesn’t matter if I don’t know what love is. Because if it really comes down to it, I do know what love is; we all do. It is the meaning of life. People just keep asking what that is because they can’t wrap their minds around that four letter word. And I can believe in that, that life has meaning. Even if it’s not always obvious that it’s there, even if it hurts a little to believe in such things.
Reflection
10:37am saturday, 27th august
Love is a large pizza with the works and extra cheese.
Strawberry
8:11pm saturday, 27th august
I'm really fucked up about love. I keep waiting for the guy I'm with to walk away. Of course he has always been faithful, he stayed with a woman who beat him up for seven years. He isn't one to give up. I'm jealous of the other ex-wife who keeps on emailing him. I wonder if I die if he will go back to her. She has these fantasies about them being soulmates and getting back together once her children are grown. I'm jealous of his blond 20 year old daughter. Of course his saying "I created the perfect woman and now I can't have her" didn't help the situation. I think he lies to me when he says nice things. Sometimes I loath myself so much that I can't sleep in the same bed - I'm too ashamed to be seen or touched. I don't want to be married in front of my family because I don't want them to see me in my wedding dress or to see my emotions, I'm going to feel so vulnerable I'll want to run away and hide.
I have a friend who is a very high functioning paranoid schizophenic. Her husband owns his own business, she is a teacher, and they have three small children. One day she told me that she hopes her children never figure out that she doesn't love them. She said, "Oh, they are a lot of fun. I have a lot of fun taking care of them. But I'm incapable of love. The only emotion I can really feel is hate." She laughs and smiles a lot and the kids climb all over her and she is very involved with their education and church and social charities. She says that her husband is the kind of person that she likes as a friend and that they will never divorce but no, she doesn't love him and never has.
I'd rather be a quivering mass of insecurities than not be able to feel or give love. Sometimes it gets hard to take care of myself because I don't care if I live or die - creating opportunites for a variety of slow, socially acceptable forms of suicide.
Mike says that hating myself is part of my schizophrenic illness. But I don't know. My sister is anorexic and bulimic and she hates herself just as much as I do, maybe more. She isn't schizophrenic. I don't doubt my Dad fucked her up by giving her a gynocological exam once. I've been having dreams about my father removing my organs, handling them poorly (like dropping them on the floor) and then returning them to my body in a state where they can no longer function. The other doctors in the dream keep shaking their heads and keep saying, "What he did was not ethical". My brother says that he never sees signs of fear or insecurity when I am with the family or out in public. So I guess I'm really good at playing social games. People like winners. If all your attitude says, "I'm good, respectable and strong" then you get treated well. I don't botch my life by inviting people to treat me poorly.
Basically I understand that there are people in this world who love me. I know what it means to be fair, honorable and honoring. But the big problem is that I don't love myself. The only releif I get is when I lose myself in painting. Then I'm distracted and too busy to hate myself and maybe, I'm making something so solid and real that I can borrow identity from it. Maybe when I paint my soul is doing something good and knows it for sure. My dog the german shepherd is always guarding my heart as well. As I write she is sleeping right next to me. I know she wants more love than I can give. But I try hard. She won't let me drift away and ignor her.
My friend with the three young kids is exasperated about the genetic theory of mental illness, how it is now vogue to tell the parents "you had nothing to do with your kid's disease". Well, her parents not only beat her a bit but they made her wear the same clothes to school every day. She would wash her underware at night in the sink and sometimes have to go to school with wet undies. And her dad was a physics professor at Princeton. I only got slapped once but I did live in a lot of fear. I think maybe my brain got burnt out from all the adreniline high of being afraid all the time. That might have caused schizophrenia. I got yelled at a lot. In high school my brother sister and I would have to skip school because our eyes were so puffed from crying for hours the night before and we were zombies, in a kind of fog and shock where we couldn't really think. My mom would write us excuse notes, like we had to go to family therapy or something. After sitting in her livingroom for several hours we usually went to the public library and tried to do work because we felt guilty about missing school. But kids would notice there was something wrong with our faces and ask difficult questions. By the time I was a senior I had figured out that if I did school, clubs, and work I would only be home from 10pm to 6am. I don't know why we got in so much trouble because we didn't smoke or do drugs or talk back and we did all our homework. I remember once telling my Dad that he had no right to call me a Bitch and boy, did I get shook. Thrown down on a couch and shook. I took the worst of it because I was the oldest. The other two learned how much I had saved them from when I left home to go to college. I remember my sister visiting me and all she did was sigh. Again and again she would sigh. I thought, boy, she is depressed. That's cause I wasnt at home to take it. I know my brother and sister at night would cry in bed (silently) when they listened to my dad go at me. I just can't remember what he said or why he would need to say it. His current wife thinks her kids are doing so much better in life than his, we are the spoiled, lazy ones who gave up on education and aren't amounting to much in the world. I'm not really sick, I'm just using my illness as a "mental crutch" so I don't have to work. My Dad did say that it would be wonderful if I had her genes instead of my mom's.
Strawberry
8:39pm saturday, 27th august
Yes, love is precious and it is the best part of life. I forgot to say it, but I mean it.
Reflection
9:48pm saturday, 27th august
I'm gonna be safe, and stick with the large Pizza, with extra cheese.
Reflection
12:32am sunday, 28th august
Allright, I'm gonna be serious and tackle this four letter word.I would say its an enigma.
reflection
1:46am sunday, 28th august
I want to make a song with your poetry Stand.You have to say yes.
kittie
4:01am sunday, 28th august
When I was younger, I did not believe in love. Then I fell in love, and what a beautiful thing that was. Now that I am older and wiser, I know that I never really loved him at all. But I do still believe in love, the conundrum that it is.
Stand
6:24am sunday, 28th august
Yes, Reflection, you may use my poetry. Just give me credit.
reflection
12:08pm sunday, 28th august
I'm gonna say love is inspiration.
reflection
12:14pm sunday, 28th august
Spiritual influence that allows a person to think, speak, or act in a way that transcends ordinary human abilities.Yep thats it.
Reflection
12:49am tuesday, 30th august
Stand, I have chosen "Out of Madness", to create a song around.I'll give it my best.
Strawberry
1:50am tuesday, 30th august
I remembered today when I cut my phone cord with a pair of scissors. I was very proud of that memory. See, I cut the cord so that I wouldn't call my boyfriend that night and embarrass myself. Girls, boys, drama and love. I shut myself up and kept my dignity. A new phone cost $15.
Stand
6:10am tuesday, 30th august
Man, I wish I'd thought of that, a couple times in the past...
just me
4:31am sunday, 18th september
I have been separated for over a year, and have been in friend/sex relationships since. It is so hard to have sex with a friend and still stay friends without a lot of neediness.
Reflection
Strawberry
Stand