I’m somewhat obsessed with the idea of romantic love. For a while now, I’ve tried to figure out where this obsession comes from. I’ve also tried to figure out where my notions about love come from. I’m a complete sucker for it.
Feeling this way causes a little bit of shame for me. This past August my dad and stepmom came over my place for dinner for my birthday. We got in to a conversation about this subject. I was making the argument that, for me, love above all else is the highest pursuit. We were also talking about attachment theory and the unintended damage parents do to their kids. My dad doesn’t buy in to this stuff – thinks I’m just going through a phase. He got a little defensive and at one point he suggested that I’m a push over and that’s why no women like me – that’s why they all leave me. I had to stop the conversation. I asked him to think about what he had just said and how hurtful it was. I’m used to this type of argument style from him. I didn’t take it too personally, it was his way of trying to beat his opponent down. Nevertheless, people like my father and my ex-friend Jen do not subscribe to the love conquers all belief system. They are much more of the mindset that it’s a nice part of life, but when it doesn’t work, you just move on. That’s completely fine… they each choose to worship different things. My dad believes knowledge conquers all – if he encountered a difficult subject, it would be all the more reason to double down. That’s how I feel about deep love, when it gets tough, you double down and figure it out. As for it being a phase…. maybe so, but it feels like it’s has been a lifetime in the making. The turning point, the epiphany, came on a mountain top in Tennessee – that’s when I decided that it, love, partnership, and sharing, was the highest pursuit for me.
Last night I was surfing YouTube looking for music. I could see I was being drawn to songs about reuniting. It was that type of night. Obviously, I’ve listened to these type of songs before – the algorithm knows all. None of the videos I watched were what I would call my favorite songs, but they had a sentimentality to them that I appreciated:
One of the comments for this video read: If I ever trick someone into loving me, this will be our song.
Because I was feeling guilty for not being better at letting go, because I was hearing my dad’s and Jen’s and B’s voice telling me how foolish it is to hold on to any hope, I started to read about love reunited, and look up famous quotes about love conquering all. Here are some of those clippings:
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies. -Aristotle
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two hoodies. -Bastardization of Aristotle by Matt Uhler
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness. – Bertrand Russell
There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer: no disease that love will not heal: no door that enough love will not open…It makes no difference how deep set the trouble: how hopeless the outlook: how muddled the tangle: how great the mistake. A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all. If only you could love enough you would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world. – Emmet Fox
Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius. – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life. That word is love. – Aristotle
The course of true love never did run smooth. – Shakespeare
To me, it seems like a worthwhile pursuit. To me it seems like the key to unlocking and enhancing so much of life’s beauty. To me, love seems like it’s the type of thing that’s worth fighting for, waiting for, and holding on to. I have to remind myself of these things – there are too many cynics in the world who would tell me it’s a frivolous pursuit.