LOVE. To be or not to be.

“You know that when I hate you, it is because I love you to a point of passion that unhinges my soul.”

~Julie de Lespinass~



~CAUTION, RANT~
 
Funny how when I need a quote to sum up the words that I cannot say, I find one that is so fitting. And that quote says it all. My love contains hate and my hate contains love. Well at least in personal relationships I have had. I remember having this fairy tale as a little girl, all wrapped up nice and neat, like Prince Charming was going to walk down the stairs and swoop me away. BTW, I am still waiting for him to show up.
 
I have had so many attempts at love fail, and I have to really start wondering why. I was listening to a conversation last night about love, and if people believed that they would have ONE that was meant for them. I guess their soul mate. I have never believed in soul mates, but I do believe that souls can mate. But I think it goes a little deeper than just that. I believe in destiny, I believe in fate, but I do not believe that there is one out there that was meant for just me. For if I believed that I would be putting someone up on a pedestal, and that is not my way. Not up so high when they fall off, I am hurt beyond repair.

But even with that said, I have to say I have had many regrets when it comes to love. I know, regretting falling in love, but I have, and I do. It is those times that I lose my head, and my passions become unhinged. I stop thinking clearly and just fall in with both feet, oh hell, my entire body! And I have to take a stand back and look and see it is just my passions coming unhinged, or am I really in love. I have loved once in my life to a man many, many years ago that I thought was my soul mate. I was young, and foolish and in love. I hated him so much that my passions truly became unhinged. I wore rose-colored glasses and saw him in an entire different light.
 
And now in the present day, I see that love as an ideal, a romantic illusion that I carried from my youth. And it does not work the same now as it did then. I have more experience, I am jaded, I am cynical, I am downright tainted on the entire concept of love. I mean I love my family, I love some of my friends, but to give myself to a man that way again, I am not so sure I could. I just went through an experience that forever changed my life. A man I was with, died. He told me that I was his soul mate, we used to argue that over and over, and he would often tell me love was enough.
 
I would tell him love would never be enough, there has to be other components in a relationship or it just won't work. I am finding out now things about that kind of love that him and I shared, that I know changed things, it changed many things, and now it is too late. It really doesn't matter anymore, or it shouldn't, but it does in other ways. I mean I am the one still alive, I am the one who has these emotions, these thoughts that steal up in the darkness. I don't want to keep making the same mistakes over and over, and over.
 
I don't want to end up alone either. But if that type of love happens again, I wonder if I will run from it, or embrace it fully. I have ran from it many times, and at times never once looked back. Yes, I am my own worse enemy when it comes to love. I have often tried to talk myself out of it, thinking that it is something for others, not for me. I have often thought myself shallow because there would be men who loved me that I could not return. I often thought myself a cold-hearted bitch because I could not force myself to fall in love.
 
I have realized that at times when I thought I was in love, it was not, it was merely something that I thought I needed. I have surrendered to men that I did not love, thinking that it would come later, and at those times it never did. I had a love of respect for them but falling in love, didn't happen. And I found out that I could never surrender completely unless I was madly in love with someone. I suppose that would be the entire package.
 
They say "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing",  I think it is bullshit at times. I think there are times when people say it just to say it, or because they need to say it, or use it as a trapping to get you. If I hear those words I am always suspecting something ulterior is going on, if I use those words, I mean them. Whether in friendship, or family, or whatever. I mean them. But I also love the written word, I love dancing in the rain, I love soft moonlight and candles. I love so many things, so how is that different when you give love to people, vs. loving other things.
 
Beats me.
 
Life goes on.........