What is Love? (Baby, Don’t Hurt Me)
Sorry. If you’re now thinking of that earworm pop tune and can’t get it out of your head, think of a different genre (reggae, perhaps. Bob Marley’s ‘One Love’?), or a word puzzle, ha ha.
But the question still remains ever-present and relevant: why is Love the most undefined, misused, twisted, heavy, powerful, scary, liberating, joyful, painful, delightful, abused, enlightening and meaningful words in the English language? And why does declaring one’s love somehow become THE most excruciating experience of a young lover’s lifetime? Does anything in the world survive being under such constant pressure in a healthy way? I am not so sure.
There sometimes comes a point in a relationship where both people are head over heels in love with each other, and so lost in the joy inside their hearts that their egos or self-perceptions are not worried about saying ‘I love you’ or worrying about if they will hear the other person say ‘I love you’ back to them when they say it… but not every relationship survives to frolic in that pleasure-filled meadow. This is dedicated to all the incomplete relationships that tremble on a shaky foundation of fear and attraction, and all the unspoken thoughts and emotions that stay hidden secretly inside each person’s soul…
I was having a conversation with a friend and he was like “People say ‘I love you’ like it’s the most precious statement in the world!”
His thought sparked my mind with new insightful light, and I replied: “Yeah, but they also say it like ‘I FEAR to love you, but now I can no longer hold back the truth about both the fear and the love, so I now say the words ‘I love you’…”
and we carried it on in various directions:
“I fear to love you!”
“I love to fear you!”
“I love to fear our potential connection, and worry if I can trust you with this knowledge of me!”
“I fear what you can do to my heart, knowing how much I care about you, but I guess that’s love!”
“I fear losing you… so now you know I admit that I’m attached!”
“I love you, but don’t love you if you don’t love me back!”
“I love this, but don’t want anything to ever change, cause that’s scary…”
“I love fearing life without you!”
and a few others.
These all made me reflect on the joys of not being emotionally beholden to one lover, and how all my happiness eggs don’t come from one basket. If I was forced to only receive love and give love to one person and from one person, I might also be very scared with the power this person may eventually feel they have over me and my happiness. Being polyamorous allows the sexual, intellectual, emotional, and physical freedom to make love to whoever I want, responsibly, and not suffer from the fear of possibly ever being cut off from the singular source of love in my life.
This is why I can say “I love you!” to EVERYONE I meet if I want to give them the truth inside me, and genuinely mean it from the bottom of my heart and center of my soul. Plus I don’t fear finding out whether you love me back or not. I don’t care either way, I love you and will never stop loving you. I don’t even have to like you to love you! But I LOVE YOU ALL!!
One last thought: Love never hurts. Only lies hurt. And love doesn’t even hurt when you find out you’ve been lied to. It’s the destruction of the lie you lived with that hurts, not the impact of the truth… I tell you my truth because I adore you, and together: we are love.
This one goes out to my brother Josh. Thanks for the eternal inspiration!
Always in Love,
Addi Stewart
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