To love or not to love

 

To Love or not To Love

 

Some women seem to need love.  A woman married for decades suddenly becomes a widow.  I have seen, time and time again, how this woman quickly attracts another mate.  This is not my experience.

In my youth I felt strong connections, serially, to men.  I called this ‘love’.  It could not have been love, however, because it did not last, it was never unconditional.  The emotion or state of being that I call love comes with a strength that cannot allow it to die.  Yet here I am, at the end of my life, alone.  I still do not know what it feels like to ‘love’

Now you come into my life.  I met you on vacation, and that should have been the end of it.  You are there, I am here.  But you do not let it die.  You call me daily, and renew your hunger for me.  This must be Maya, an illusion.  What is in it for you?  I am an old woman, on the verge of death.  I cannot give you babies, I cannot be a good Housewife.  I am at best a casual housekeeper and a seasonal cook.  If you had my love for a lifetime, it would be short lived.  So why do you pursue me?

Most of my life I have worked hard to gain control over my emotions and imagination.  I see through transient alliances for what they are.  I do not confuse them for the real thing, and so I hold back and protect my heart lest it break, once again.  No more!

You say you want ‘an experience’ with me.  That is a new one on me, what is ‘an experience’?  It is easy for me to sit here, miles away, and see your sweet face filled with love, and imagine that there could be more.  The Wise Woman in me reminds me constantly that this is merely an illusion.  Your words and sentiments are incredibly sensitive and romantic.  You sweep me off my feet, making me believe that you cannot live without me. 

The cynic within me says, ‘yea, right’.

This is a time of turmoil, in my life.  It comes with stress.  The cherished house I built, the home I live in, the land I have come to love, has been sold.  I must move on in the next few months.  To start my life again?  Where?  Why must I?  How long must this alien existence go on?  I want to go home, to my spiritual domain, shedding the bonds and limitations of this flesh.  Will the last ten years of my life continue as the previous eighty?  Alone, fending for myself, fierce intelligence protecting me from the world that is out there, each soul demanding its own, willing to give little of protection and love in return.

Now you come along, creating the illusion that at last someone has come into my life who wants to protect me, to take care of me, to lift from my shoulders the nearly unbearable weight of this self-protecting life.  Am I to fall back upon my youthful optimism and trust, the pattern of giving and getting transient ‘love’ in return?  Do you offer me one last, ultimate, heartbreak?  Is that cruelty, or a blessing?  Is it true, ‘it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’?  Isn’t that a loser’s lament?

Now we get to the word ‘love’.  It has taken on broad meanings over time.  There are many kinds of love, as the Greek language has shown us. 

Is it better to have had the love of a child, and then lost it, then never to have had a child at all?  No, I can say from experience, that offers a life time of pain.  Pain of separation, pain of feeling condemnation, of being not enough, of somehow abandonment and betrayal.  One could live happily without knowing this kind of love and loss.

There is paternal love, love of ones parents.  That comes with so many pitfalls.  Are we closer to one than to the other?  Buddhist philosophy tells us that at the moment of conception we are drawn in by attraction to one partner, which can then lead to jealousy of the other partner, setting us up for lifelong conflict.  Not all relationships are so easily defined, but in my case I think this may have been true.  I have felt very protective of my father, loathing my mother for her rough handling of him.  This has robbed me of feeling maternal love.  Even beyond death, my bond with my father remains strong.  I am still puzzled by the subtleties of maternal love.

There is fraternal love.  In a literal sense, that would mean love for and between my siblings.  I am blessed not to ever have been emotionally estranged from my siblings, but love for me has always come behind love for their partners, which is how it should be.  Having no partner myself, I often look to them for affirmation and loyalty, but that is not included in the ‘brotherly love’ package.  Spouse always comes before siblings, in my experience.

There is erotic love.  Through the years of cultural and social development, ‘maturity’ or perhaps more accurately, ‘decay’, I have seen the cultural confines of this kind of love loosen.  We live in an age of open pornography.  The nude body is flaunted everywhere we look, in films, in advertising,  in the flesh.  The privacy of the human body and sexuality used to evoke eroticism within the bonds of relationship.  Now it is open to the public, no modesty, no commitments needed.  Were we to allow ourselves the bonds of commitment and relationship, erotic love would be most private, most welcomed.  Erotic love is satisfying, deeply fulfilling, but not when it is cheapened by multiple partners in casual liaisons.  At least, that is my perception. 

Lastly, then, love such as is lacking in my life cannot be contained within ‘an experience’.  I have had a life full of experiences, adventures, and I do not crave more.  Now I crave alone melting into the eternal love and acceptance and glow that comes with death.  It is foolish of me to think that you could feel for me that committed love, that self-sacrificing love that puts the other first, that is ultimately loyal and continues growing until the final separation of death; and perhaps beyond.  You would have to be a highly realized spiritual being to go there.  As much as I feel your purity and sincerity, I see no evidence that you are that being.  You are still young, still looking to have experiences, to learn, to grow.  You did not come into this world to wait for our reunion, to continue a love that was kindled in other bodies.  I am enough of a romantic to imagine it could be so, yet the realist in me says that is a fantasy.

My sweet, sweet young man, I wish for you to find that love in a peer, so that you need not suffer the pain of separation too soon.  I wish for you an undying love that will hold you in its embrace for the rest of your life.  Do not squander your love on passing attractions.  Do not sully the purity of heart that I see in you now, by casual liaisons, or transient passions.

Know love, in all its forms, and do not give it away lightly where it will be betrayed.  Learn the difference, and know when to love and when not to love.  Ultimately, love is a gift, not a tool or a weapon.  I wish it for you in abundance.