We’ve all been in relationships where we are head-over-heels in love with someone. We love them with our entire beings. There is a piece of them in everything we do, a part of them in all of our thoughts, their face in our minds whenever we venture out into the world. Being in love is something that often times is indescribable – but, we still try to put into words exactly how we feel. Love is subjective, but from what people say it actually is – it sounds like bliss. I’m not a religious person, but I’d imagine if “Heaven” were a reality here on Earth, walking through it would feel the same way many people feel when they’re in love.
But, love is never perfect. While we write metaphors and prose, long-form letters and vows about how beautiful and romantic love can be – it can be painful. Love can eat away at you like a parasite in the night. It can suck the life out of you and leave you empty and hollow. There comes a time in everyone’s life where they are faced with the question no one truly wants to face. The terrifying realities that sneak up on us like a slithering snake without a sound. It wraps itself in our minds and chokes us senseless into coming up with answers we’re never ready to truly address. Is the person I’m in love with the absolute best person for me?
When we’re in love, we look at life through rose-colored glasses. Everything seems whimsical and wonderful, problems seem minuscule and everything can be put in the past if we see somewhat of an effort to change. But, as quoted by BoJack Horseman:
When you look at life through rose-colored glasses, red flags just seem like flags.
We never fully address or understand situations in their brutal reality, because we’re living in a constant high of optimism. We’re blinded by this narrative about love that it can withstand anything. If love is “real” and it is “true,” fights and issues always have a fix. There can be compromise and understanding with any two people if they are truly in love. And, we so badly want to believe the situation we are in is really love, we force ourselves to settle into relationships that aren’t right for us. But, how do we know what is right for us?
It’s complicated and simple all at the same time. As we go through the world, we encounter different people from different walks of life. Many of times, we date several people before we fall in love with the person we believe is “the one.” And, when we finally are facing ourselves to answer the question of the forever’s and the future’s – we look back on our past and examine it all. We leave people in the past because they aren’t giving us what we truly need. We are unfulfilled, unhappy, unsatisfied. Or, we’ve been burned at the stake so badly, we can no longer trust, respect or love the person we once called “mine.” We examine the current state of our own relationship now and we are forced into looking at it in black and white.
Love is never black and white. Love is filled with gray areas. Love is filled with fury red and blushing pink. Love is filled with stone cold blues and envious greens. Love is not simple. Love is complex. Love is confusing and weird and awkward and scary. But, we deserve to be loved. We deserve to be loved in all of the ways our body needs, craves, yearns for. We deserve to be loved without question, without begging, without asking. We deserve to be satisfied in ways we never knew we could be. We deserve to be loved in a place that is not on borrowed time.
You can be in love with someone with every inch of your soul and being. You can want more than anything in the world to build a life, a home, a family with a person – but that person is not the right person for you.
I remember when I learned in Geometry class about parallel and perpendicular lines. Parallel lines run side-by-side, always continuing on forever, never intersecting. Perpendicular lines intersect at a point – possibly more than once. And, as an adult, I think about love the way I think about lines in Geometry class. If you love someone with all of your heart, but their outlook on love, lust, and life runs parallel to yours – never intersecting – they’re not the person for you. The person you spend your “forever’s” with should have values and dreams that run through yours, that have similar meeting points.
It’s impossibly daunting and troubling to try and push for a life with someone who never meets your hopes. It’s in those moments of contemplation we realize, no matter how much we do love someone, there may be someone out there who is better suited for us – who can give us more of what we deserve. Breaking up with someone you are in love with can seem like an impossibility, but along the way, you are going to be faced with the moments of disappointment, let down and utter heartbreak when you realize that the relationship is running on borrowed time – a relationship with an uncertain and almost impossible future. Don’t settle for a life you never wanted to lead – just because it’s in someone else’s comfort zone.