““Some of the grandest explosions, biggest car accidents, and largest waves, make the most noise. And yet no matter how big the heartbreak, it is always silent.””
Sometimes he gets so engulfed in a television series that he feels empty when it ends. He feels like he becomes part of the story. This happened to him often as a child- read a book and transport into the pages.
Now that he is older this happens with people. It’s hard to argue that being so committed to a book is a bad thing, but to a person it can be dangerous. He finds himself becoming so engulfed in them that when it ends, he feels empty. He loves and hates this about himself. On one hand, how beautiful it is to feel so deeply. On the other, what a curse.
He was happy before he met these people and he was happy after they left. He knows his worth is not dependent upon whether or not they stay, but he always hoped with his entire being that they would.
It’s not that he thinks he will never feel love again, but it was that he hoped so much he wouldn’t have to. He wished they would’ve been content with the love he gave to them, just as he was with what they gave to him. If you love what you have what is the point in searching? A question no one ever stuck around long enough to answer.
It wasn’t always him that got left, sometimes he did the leaving. It hurts him to think about how those that he left were just as hurt as he was. He knows how the heart feels when it breaks.
Some of the grandest explosions, biggest car accidents, and largest waves make the most noise. And yet no matter how big the heartbreak, it’s always silent. All that pain with nowhere to go.
Sometimes he would envision it leaving his heart like steam. When you pour the pasta into the strainer and the steam floats across your face. When the air is colder than your breath and you exhale onto the window. When the mirror in your bathroom fogs up from the shower.
Sometimes to help him through the pain, he would imagine it leaving his body like steam. He would watch it float out of his heart, and into the air. It would travel far far away and eventually disappear.
But even though the steam has left, the pasta is still cooked and the next time you exhale you can still see the outline of heart you drew on the window. The pain left, but it changed you, and sometimes it is still there.
People always say ‘love hurts,’ but that is not true. It is not love that hurts, it is your inability to accept it that hurts you.
Because you refuse to accept it, how ever can you give it back? And because you never give it back, you never get to experience what love truly is. A gift.
Like presents under the tree at Christmas, you see them wrapped up and you wait patiently until the morning to open them. Sometimes your parents let you open one the night before and something inside you chooses that one. Maybe it was the biggest one, maybe it was the smallest one. Maybe it was the strangely shaped and mysterious one, or maybe you recognized it.
We rarely know what feelings a person is going to give us. What kind of love they are capable of giving. Sometimes we don’t have the patience to find out and sometimes we find a familiar feeling and reach for it. We recognize it, its comfortable, and there is no risk.
We open it and despite the excitement of a new present, we already knew what it was going to be. There were no broken expectations, no false hope it would be something different. Sometimes we reach for the present that we know because to reach for gift whose shape we don’t recognize, could leave us with something we didn’t want.
We could open it, smile across the room and say thank you, but we would have preferred something else. Sometimes we reach for the present we know because to reach for a gift we don’t- comes with the unknown. It’s just as, if not more exciting, but comes with risk. What if we open it and we don’t like it?
Just for a moment, look at the gifts under the Christmas tree and imagine to yourself that no matter what present you open, you will be happy.
Imagine that no matter what the present ends up being, you love it.
Imagine that it is everything you ever wanted. That it was on your list for so long, but you didn’t think you would ever get it.
Imagine the feeling you have when you first undo the paper and see whats beneath the bow. Imagine the happiness that comes over you when you realize it’s even more than you ever thought it could be.
Imagine for a second you were on the nice list, and imagine you deserve it. Imagine you accept it. Imagine you don’t resist it. Imagine it doesn’t hurt.
People always say ‘love hurts,’ but it’s not love that hurts, it is your inability to accept love that hurts.
When someone tells you “I am afraid I can’t give you what you give me,” believe them. Don’t have hope, don’t think you can change them, and don’t try to love them more into being able to. Because the truth is just that- what we think we are is what we are.
If they do not think they can give to you what you give to them, they never will be able to.
If they do not think they deserve you, they won’t.
If they do not think they will be able to love you, they won’t.
If they do not think they can show up for you, they won’t.
Even if they want to, they can’t. And that is the part that hurts, both you and them.
Because when someone tells you “I am afraid,” it makes you want to hold them and tell them there are no monsters under the bed. And if there are, you would protect them. Because you see in them the fear you once had.
Because you don’t require them to give to you anything more than themselves and they cannot understand that.
Because you love them and they don’t know how to love.
Because you don’t want grand gestures, just grand love.
And you finally realize that it was never the grand gestures they were afraid to give you, it was the love.
Sometimes he loves books so much because for a brief moment in time, love works out. He gets engulfed in the story, in the people, and in the stories of people.
But he no longer accepts the story “I can’t give you what you give me,” because it’s not a book he would ever pick up to read.
Nor is the kind of love story he would ever write for himself.