12 August, 2007

you go your way, I go mine, but I'll see you next time

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

(Sonnet CXVI, Shakespeare)

Pretty words, aren't they? Pretty sentiments. They sound true, they sound like always and forever and until the end of time. Purity of emotion; it feels like this.

But what do they really mean. in our real lives? How do these pretty words help?

I've been asked more than once why my ex-loves are still on my roster of friends. If there's no hope, if there's no going back, why can't I walk away? Why do I still interact with them?

Well, part of it is simple courtesy, politeness, civil behavior. Unless we parted with great acrimony--and even my tragedies did not deal me the death of all love--I don't see strong reason to be uncivil, impolite.

But more...I've mentioned here before, it's very difficult for me to unlove. Once I give my heart, I have great problems taking it back. Even once it's returned to me, some small part of me, for more time than is usually good for me...is still there, still resonates to the call of their name across the square, still rings with the echo of their presence.

Maybe I'm a hopeless romantic in this sense. Love doesn't die for me. It withers slowly through inattention, it atrophies, it staggers through attrition and denial. But that facile turning away from the once-loved, the shrugging off of affection I see so many around me perform with such ease...I can't do it. I don't know why. It's just not in me.

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;


But it is. It is shaken, it is storm-tossed in the winds. Love turns to pain, love turns to grieving, love turns to that slow ache, that little thorn-prick, low on the threshhold of consciousness, that makes us turn, makes us reflect, on love lost, love gained, love released.

Mayhap, I would be happier if I fell in love easily, fell out of it as easily, lighthearted about every affair of my heart. But love goes deep with me, each love changes me, each love marks me.

And the marks take a very long time, indeed, to fade. If they ever do.

If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.


It's not false, what the Bard says. But it's not always absolute truth. Love can die if killed. Love can leave if there's no hope. Love can wither, unattended, and love can drown, stranded far from any shore.

It's truth, as far as it goes. It just doesn't apply to every situation. Because love is more complicated than those pretty words, lived day to day in a life. Love is the many-splintered thing, and it will always have thorns on all the roses.

At least mine does. Maybe everyone else...is different.

In other news...I may have set a new record on the grid for fastest job gained and lost. The two designers have parted, and the one that's a personal friend wants me to come with her. We'll see how it goes...

7 comments:

CJSF said...

It continues to be my experience that love MUST alter and MUST bend, yet never yield. Love that is unalterable and inflexible becomes a tyrrany, a dictator fixed upon domination and conquest.

Love may endure forever, but it can not be stagnant. If it can not adapt we are left with nothing but an iron rod, a furrowed brow and ashes in our mouths.

-iD

Emilly Orr said...

Very well put, indeed. Thank you.

turnerBroadcasting said...

Love's best habit is seeming trust.
This works well in LA also.

Trust me on this.

turnerBroadcasting said...

ashes in our mouth? I have been hit with the iron rod before but nobody has ever given me ashes in my mouth.

Then again, I am new to SL..

Emilly Orr said...

Well, love and trust, or at the least, relationship and trust, they should go together. Seeming or believed.

Ashes in the mouth, that's the death of hope, paired with injury to love.

TotalLunar Eclipse said...

Great love means great risk and the potential for great loss, Love anyway... I believe that quote is yours.

I used to love easily, but my heart wounds too quickly for my own liking. Walls are erected, barriers deployed until one day you realize you do not know how to love anymore because it is encased in ice. Emotions are foreign and love is just another word. Yet you cannot envy those whom give it so freely because you do not know how.

But you do not have to think that route, your quote fits your personality and for that I must commend you. I believe you have seen the darkest as you have seen the brightest. Do not feel sorrow. If I could envy someone, it would be you.

Emilly Orr said...

It is. It's rule six. Even when it hurts, I believe in that. To love with the whole of your heart, and risk the pain of losing that love...it is a great risk, with greater hurt in store.

Love anyway. Because to be closed and barriered, to me, is worse even than grieving lost love. Lost love, as much pain as it carries, still means that you loved, still means you were capable of love. Means that you were open to all possibilities.

I've lived the frozen life, I've lived sealed away from touch and light, emotion and consequence. It's too cold for me there, I wither, not thrive. I had to throw the keep doors open, which shattered the walls I'd built.

Even with that...love anyway. Terrifying as that is, much of the time. I have to cling to that as having value.

hide away, they say, 'cos we don't want your broken parts

Yeah, so...remember that thing I was recovering from? You know, last year ? Yeah. I did it again. So this is Em Faw Down Go Boom part ...