Recently I've been wondering.. what is it I find so appealing about being in love? At some point we are all in love, in need of love, longing for love, thinking about love, hating love, wishing for love, out of love... No offense to love or anything but I find it a catch 22.
It's like bi-polar disorder where there can be these intense highs and lows. Well for me at least. But what is it that keeps us coming back for more? Maybe it's the high we feel when in love... something that no amount of drinking, drugs or any other vice can really duplicate...it's extremely exotic and intoxicating.. but how is it when love ends? It's like that hang over that you think will never go away.. or the withdrawal when you've gotten addicted to drugs.. but this feeling last much longer and digs deeper than any hangover or withdrawal.
Love sometimes makes you willing to put up with someone's flaws. And if you have self esteem issues it can complicate those. You may think (consciously or sub-consciously) that if this person you're in love with treats you negatively, it's probably that you're the one with the problem. Because you've put them on this pedestal, you think it must be you and if you were worthy they would treat you as such.. cuz they're perfect, right? Wrong! I've noticed (from my experience as well as others) that if you don't know self-worth, being in love with or loving the wrong person can really do a number on your mental health.
People will always say you need to be a complete person before you decide to be with someone else. Two complete persons, not two halves - so when one leaves you're in pieces. Well I have thought and thought about that... how is it that many of us feel so put together before we get involved with someone, but when they leave, we fall apart anyway?
Were we wrong in our self-analysis? I think now more than ever, you never really know yourself 'til you've been in and out of love. It really shows you more about yourself than most other life experiences ever will. Loving people has given me a view of myself from many different angles .. and not all of it has been pretty. It's also made me better in someways and broken in others. Would I trade my experience in love for anything? Honestly, maybe some of the broken bits but generally no.
There is this quote from a recent Britney Spears interview where she actually spoke about her bi-polar disorder. In some ways I think it relates to love:
"It's weird like you can see the cruelest part of the world, the cruelest part...but then on the other side you see the most beautiful part ....do you know? It's like you go from one extreme to the next....and they're both worth it cause you wouldn't see the other without the other one. But that cruel part is damn cruel and you'll never forget it. But that heaven....is heaven. And it's like....I've been to both places."
We all need love... some of us have it now, some are still searching and some swear they will live without it. Right now I'm just sick of it and the toll that it takes, but like they say.. this too shall pass..
