I’ve been in a few relationships in my life.
One serious longer one, others were more brief, and one I felt strongest about that never had a title. It never had a name, or even much of a chance for that matter, it was a mix of unknowns, of pressures, “is this right”? “what are we doing?” and yet, I’ve never experienced love like I had in what I call for lack of a better word, my “situationship”.
All of these experiences but I have never experienced a “forever” love
I don’t know what it’s like to say “I do”. I don’t know what it’s like to be secure in love, what it’s like to look at someone and just know that they will always have your back.
That doesn’t make my experience with love a failure. I still have felt love at some point. I have loved and been loved. I hesitate to write this because I question the love that has been displayed to me. I question how someones words of “I love you” can differ so much from their actions, but when describing love, it’s similar to pain. We all feel pain differently and based on our experiences and upbringings, we don’t all share the same definition of love, of what it looks like, how it acts and what it means. So I cannot judge whether the love displayed to me was genuine. What I can judge however, is that even though temporary, I have still experienced love.
This may be the only love I ever experience. I don’t know. I may never get to experience a lifetime of loving the same person.
Does that mean I shouldn’t experience love ever again?
Does that mean I don’t know what it feels like to be in love?
Does that mean I am less than?
We put so much emphasis on longevity in relationships.
We celebrate increment years as milestones as if the length of something equates quality. Hallmark loves to celebrate longevity of relationships.
At my grandfathers funeral they mentioned how he had been married to my grandma for 60 years. I let that sink in and then looked down the pew at my family members, all of us who based on age and current situations, will never reach that milestone. We will never experience a 60 year romantic relationship, ever! But are we missing out? is 30 years or 40 years or even 5 years less loving or romantic? Is love really equal to time?
Several people go to work for a single purpose – a pay cheque.
A lot of us do the same in relationships. We stay for the one or two things we like and put up with the things we don’t because we’ve already invested so much.
We stay in things because staying is celebrated. Walking away is often looked at as weak and starting over is both feared and looked at as this awful thing.
There isn’t enough praise for temporary love
So many people on this earth will never experience “forever love” which is really a fib in itself cause nothing is forever.
But most of us experience temporary love in so many different forms and are never grateful for it because it “didn’t last”.
Why does it need to last a lifetime for it to be meaningful, life changing or beautiful?
Who decides this?
Sure, a life with the same partner, sharing everything together, working through trials, finding compromise in every circumstance, living with and next to someone for a lifetime is remarkable and beautiful, but living a life of multiple forms of love with different people, having a variety of connections and experiencing different ways to love can also be remarkable and beautiful.
An ended relationship is not a failure.
Marriage is not a finish line.
We can love more than one person in our lifetime. We can embrace and celebrate and be proud of the love that came to us, that found us and was temporary. Because all we have in this life is temporary. Nothing truly lasts forever.
Do I want to love the same person for the rest of my life if it’s fulfilling and beautiful and everything I’ve ever wanted? Yes. 100 times yes. But if I live a life of finding love in other ways and other places, in people I don’t expect, then I will be grateful for temporary love as well.
I wrote this after finding out a friends marriage had ended. Another one. I wrote this because I know there are many people who have ended relationships, like myself, and felt like such a failure and like so much time was wasted because it had ended.
I wrote this as an attempt to re-frame how we look at love. I think society has built us to believe love should be chased and pursued and lived in the same way for everyone.
As per usual, I’m over here attempting to break societies moulds because life didn’t put me in one so I will continue to create my own.
Enjoy whatever love you find
xo
Up My Alli 