A lot of people ask me what my biggest fear is, or what scares me most. And I know they expect an answer like heights, or closed spaces, or people dressed like animals, but how do I tell them that when I was 17 I took a class called Relationships For Life and I learned that most people fall out of love for the same reasons they fell in it. That their lover’s once endearing stubbornness has now become refusal to compromise and their one track mind is now immaturity and their bad habits that you once adored is now money down the drain. Their spontaneity becomes reckless and irresponsible and their feet up on your dash is no longer sexy, just another distraction in your busy life.
Nothing saddens and scares me like the thought that I can become ugly to someone who once thought all the stars were in my eyes.
this fucks me up every single time
I never expected this to be my most popular poem out of the hundreds I’ve written. I was extremely bitter and sad when I wrote this and I left out the most beautiful part of that class.
After my teacher introduced us to this theory, she asked us, “is love a feeling? Or is it a choice?” We were all a bunch of teenagers. Naturally we said it was a feeling. She said that if we clung to that belief, we’d never have a lasting relationship of any sort.
She made us interview a dozen adults who were or had been married and we asked them about their marriages and why it lasted or why it failed. At the end, I asked every single person if love was an emotion or a choice.
Everybody said that it was a choice. It was a conscious commitment. It was something you choose to make work every day with a person who has chosen the same thing. They all said that at one point in their marriage, the “feeling of love” had vanished or faded and they weren’t happy. They said feelings are always changing and you cannot build something that will last on such a shaky foundation.
The married ones said that when things were bad, they chose to open the communication, chose to identify what broke and how to fix it, and chose to recreate something worth falling in love with.
The divorced ones said they chose to walk away.
Ever since that class, since that project, I never looked at relationships the same way. I understood why arranged marriages were successful. I discovered the difference in feelings and commitments. I’ve never gone for the person who makes my heart flutter or my head spin. I’ve chosen the people who were committed to choosing me, dedicated to finding something to adore even on the ugliest days.
I no longer fear the day someone who swore I was their universe can no longer see the stars in my eyes as long as they still choose to look until they find them again.
This is so fucking important and I think it’s something I needed right now
I think the greatest irony of my life is when the cafeteria at my college changed all the lights to blue bulbs for “autism awareness”, which fucked with my sensory issues badly enough that I could barely stand to be in the building
I greatly respect kind people because I know from experience that it is much harder to keep choosing kindness rather than apathy or negativity.
it is easy and simple to hate and ignore the world that hates and ignores you, but waking up and choosing kindness everyday is an act of rebellion, and I choose to rebel every day.
it is difficult, most of the time, but as long as we try, I think it’s worth it. go to sleep knowing you did your best, and if it wasn’t enough, it’s not your fault, because at least you tried. you made an effort. you showed up, and you slogged, and you did the hard work, and that is enough.
haha ha, yknow how queer people don’t really have the same chance their straight peers do to explore relationships in middle/high school, so their romantic development is years behind by default? well, get this, you’re gonna love this, what if back to back global disasters and “once in a lifetime” catastrophes interfered even more? can you imagine?? dfakdf lol it’d be so funny, such a goofemup, if someone’s chance at normal social development was completely ruined for them for 20 years. hahahha. so hysterical. it’s like, they wouldn’t really feel like a person because their opportunities for platonic and romantic love had been squandered at every turn, isn’t that just gut busting?
how do you emotionally move forward when life is so stagnant rn ?? we cant go anywhere or see anyone and it’s cold outside .. the only kind of character development or emotional growth rn probably comes from lots of introspection which kinda makes u think in circles alot of the time?? and go crazy?? i make a lot of drawings to deal with it and it helps but idk .. i guess theres no real answer to this im just thinking