Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Being Loved

Being loved is hard for me. I don't really ever believe I deserve it. I believe I deserve respect, to be listened to and paid attention to, treated as intelligent and experienced and trustworthy. I believe I deserve responsibility, even sometimes power. But love... I have such a high standard for myself when it comes to love. It's hard for me to believe that I should be loved endlessly and thoroughly and absolutely. I try to believe it, but in practice I don't live like it's true. I apologize too much. I need too much reassurance. I simply don't understand how it could be true.

Then there's this person who is on the wrong coast right now, who is exhausted, stressed, and has a million things on his plate. But he calls to say goodnight without fail. He supports me no matter what. He'll repeat himself over and over until I've heard what I need to hear. He's never too busy for me. I'm always the most important thing to him, even when I don't think I should be. Everything he does says "I love you."

Sometimes it makes me so uncomfortable to be loved this much, but I've never felt so safe as I have for the past two years. I've never felt so free to give love, and giving love is something my soul starves for. Pouring myself into someone else is how I breathe.

He lets me love him too much, and that's something I was built to do. I feel too deeply. I long too hard. I fall too fast. I yearn too strongly. He is an unweatherable rock under the onslaught of my affection. He is the mountain that grows taller in the storm.

Do I romanticize him? Absolutely. Intentionally. I'd like to think that's part of my charm.

It's part of his, too. He is romanticizable unlike any other. He deserves to be romanticized. If only I could dress him in a suit of shining armor and put him on a white horse with my words, I would. Who wouldn't romanticize a fairy tale? That's what they are there for.

The fairytale goes like this:

There was a girl who needed to love someone. There was a boy who knew her well enough to know that she needed to be loved herself, loved extra well, extra strongly, or else she wouldn't feel it or believe it.

There was a boy who needed to love someone. There was a girl who knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't give his love to just anyone, and if he was willing to give it to her, he would give it to her alone, forever. She knew he needed to be loved, as well, but that boys who are built like mountains require a special, strong kind of love.

She loved him, and then he loved her. They left the city, bought a house, and drank tea together in their house. She grew vegetables and he painted small statues. They read books about love, and listened to songs about love, and played games about being in love.

Whenever they had to be far apart, the boy always called her to say goodnight, and when she hung up the phone, the girl always thought to herself, "This is what love is. I'm never forgotten. I'm never alone."

I don't know how the fairytale ends, although I could probably make a pretty good guess. What I do know is that it will get boring in the middle for the reader, because it will go on like that for a long time. Boring old love, steady and implacable, a mountain unmovable.