Cynics would say that love is a battlefield. It isn't worth the injury and in some cases the post traumatic syndrome that comes with allowing someone else into your heart. Now, in this matter I speak with NO experience. I have never been in love and loved in return. I have fallen, this is true but it has never been returned and so I have never experienced a relationship. Something someone is constantly reminding me of when I judge them for being cynical about love. Now, I'm a self professed single. Not sure that I will ever marry or have children. One of the main reasons for this is that I refuse to settle or give up who I am for anyone else and also because I can't be a hypocrite. I have said over and over to so many friends--if you don't love yourself and you can't stand alone than you will never really successfully stand with someone else. I know I have issues and my take on it is that until I get all that worked out, I'm not hauling anybody else into my issues. I say this to say, that it is not that I don't believe in love. I do.
I believe in love because I have seen it. It isn't always pretty and it doesn't always end like Hollywood ends it and sometimes "he's just not that into you" but there are times when it happens for real and it lasts a lifetime and when it does, it is worth it. At least, that is what keeps me hoping. I do hope to one day find someone who "gets" me, supports me, laughs with me, hears me, and respects me. Someone who will bring out the adventure and spontaneity in me, someone who will surprise me, someone who thinks the sun shines out my ass. Someone who knows just by looking at me when I'm genuinely happy and when I'm not. I believe it is worth holding out for, and if it is not in my journey--I do hope that for those who do find it on their journey; that they cherish it. I can say that from my point of view, it is hard work. You have to give and take, fight and make up, go through the bad to enjoy the good, and etc.... I'm not disillusioned by the hundreds of chick flick movies and Nicholas Sparks’s novels. I have it all in perspective.
So, why am I not feeling the love? It's because recently I have been surrounded by conversations about how it isn't worth it, or how it is not real, how the opposite sex manipulates it, twists it and uses it against each other. It is how you take the most precious gift, the gift of life, and you decide who it belongs to. It is breaking a heart out of spite, or cheating on someone because it is expected of you. It is the dirty side, the side that makes cynics. I live with them. And I can honestly say that if I ran into any of the women that did it to them, I would probably be taken to jail.
And it was then that I realized, if we are doing this to those we love, who we are suppose to care for and who were are genuinely responsible for, it is no wonder that we take so lightly the plight of others. If we can be so hardened, so cynical, so cold to the world around us. If people can use love against each other, then what other damage are we doing to the world. And does it really start with something so simple….
We don't want to pay more taxes so that the poor can be fed, but have you thought of all those lost souls trying to find warmth as we enter a historic hard freeze in Houston? I can tell you that if I did not have my family and my friends, I would have easily been one of them once or twice. I know that my family lived from paycheck to paycheck most of my life and at any time if my dad had been laid off or hurt, or worse died--our family would have been in a detrimental situation. But our answer is that they need to “work harder” “get a job” “stop leaching off society and pick yourselves up from the bootstraps” What if they are all out of pick me ups in 24 degree weather? What if they did fight and were always turned down? What if they are part of a cycle, we are all too selfish and arrogant to look up from? What if the rich keep getting richer and the poor continue to suffer? Who do we love, ourselves? I know that there are children who are not being fed, who don't have a warm place to call home and who are abused and abandoned to suffer the rest of their lives and that they often continue the cycles that they were raised in, but we fight for each and every one of them to be brought into this world when we don't really have a way to take care of them all when they are here. Where are the picketers then? Are they taking those babies home and giving them a warm nurturing upbringing or are they judging and scorning and then walking away to let those babies fend for themselves when they come into this world, proud that they “saved” them. I know that we are arrogant as a nation and as a world and we abuse our earth, our poor, and the purity of life. I tell you, if you watched Avatar and you didn't get that those militant jerks we were all cheering to get killed off, that was us. A nation destroying the world "Pandora" and that beautiful tree they all lived in for something that was worth so much money when all the resources we needed was in our hands....yea. Watch it again and tell me what you see, and then take a good look in the mirror.
What do you see? What are you willing to give your life for? What is worth the fight? If you ask me, it could all be answered with love. That "thing" that we doll up for Hollywood and abuse and use against each other and what we cynically believe is non-existent in "real" life....it is the answer. Call me a hippy, tell me I'm foolish but at the end of the day---I'll take foolish over arrogance and destruction any day.
What do you see? The house, the car, the money, the toys, the games, and the stuff you dust --it could all go tomorrow and you'd give it all up before you let someone you love get hurt. Love isn't just a man and a woman. It is mother, father, son, daughter, friend, sibling, roommate, etc... You don't get to choose who you love, and no matter how cynical those around me could be I know without a shadow of a doubt that they would all fight to the death for each other and for me--they would give their lives for those they love and we would all fight and should fight for what we love. I also know that come hell or high water they will fight for that dream. Why? One Love. Person, place, idea, dream, and belief---if there is love, it is worth the fight. All you need is love. You can be what you were always meant to be as long as you love it enough to make it worth it.
What is worth it to you?
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