LOVE IS FOREVER (AND NEVER)

It’s funny, how we go about love. Something so huge and all encompassing yet at the same time, delicate and subtle. I’ve always been a massive romantic (philosophically speaking, not in the “stuffed teddy bears and love heart chocolates” sense – ew). Love had always seemed much more captivating, alluring and authentic to me when it was tumultuous, challenging and heart wrenchingly passionate. Stories like Romeo & Juliet, Wuthering Heights and the Sorrows of Young Werther probably didn’t do me any great favours in contradicting this idea. But the reality of this type of love is that something like it just can’t last (note the literary references above and their respective body counts). While it might not be necessary fatal IRL, it’s often difficult, painful, emotionally depleting and physically exhausting.
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Then, there’s the other “boring” type of love. That safe, comforting, embracing kind that grows big and beautiful through years of companionship, mutual respect and support. It sounds safe. But this, this is the love that scares me. Because this is the love that should last forever. Only sometimes it doesn’t.
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A few months ago I had the beginnings of a panic attack. My head got really faint, my breathing became quick and fast, and I felt an overwhelming nausea and fear sweep over me. It happened soon after my sister suddenly separated from her long-term partner, one of my best friends had a shitty break up, and for the first time, I met my partner’s ex-girlfriend, who he’d been together with for many years prior. I felt that, all around me, were symbols of love’s mortality, and that idea of the transience and impermanency of love frightened me – almost to the point of physical collapse.
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Okay, so yes, I’m a bloody drama queen. But once I caught my breath, bought a Boost Juice, and booked in to see a decent psychologist, I thought about love a bit more and that suffocating idea of “forever”. We dress it up and romanticise it, but what is “forever” if not an idea, a “concept” that sounds lofty and epic but is not something actionable, because we cannot actually do anything “forever”. In fact, we can’t even do anything “yesterday”, “tomorrow” or “next week”. Sure we make plans, we set goals, we often lay out our lives out ahead of us to give us something to work towards or look forward to, but in reality, the only moment that is in our control is this minute, this second, we live breath by breath. And it’s only in these little, tiny moments that we can really build love towards anything that looks like forever. Those tiny, bad choices we make in love, like ignoring our partner when they ask us to watch a cat video on YouTube, or not responding to text messages in order to make them worried or jealous, or making subtle (or not so subtle) comments that you know will make them feel guilty, ashamed or belittled – it’s these actions, however small, that can chip away at at any sort of love, let alone a “forever” one.
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So I won’t faint again at the bleak reality of love having an end date, because I don’t think anyone can really “love” forever. What we can do is keep making those little choices, moment by moment, and make them from a place of love. From that kind, respectful and compassionate place that’s often reserved for baby animals and our friends non-ugly children. That’s what I’m trying at the moment. And besides over-committing my really-busy boyfriend to a sexy photoshoot on the beach, (thanks Bjorn, we look fleek AF) I don’t think I’m doing too badly. It’s true, he makes it easy,  and often leaves me thinking “hey, maybe forever is doable after all?”