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What do I think is love?
To me, love really is a matter of vulnerability. When I lower every guard I have and tell my lover secrets of mine, and they hold those secrets to their heart, that is love. In this way, I guess, I have friends that I love, that I can share my innermost self with, and friends that I don't.
And then there's my lover. I think I share that same love, but it's tempered - I'm always watching what I say, because I never want to disappoint him. I've had breakups before, and so maybe part of this is a fear of not wanting to give myself entirely to him. Or perhaps it's a fear that he'll leave me if he gets too close to my heart and sees what I think I am.
Of course, when I do let him in, he never leaves me. Half the time it leaves me in tears - when I realise that he's just accepted who I am and he's still there, it affects me like nothing else. And I've revealed demons of mine that I'm sure anyone else would need to do some serious soul-searching about. But he didn't. Every neurosis. Every secret. Every demon. He took them all, and then embraced me harder. And the more vulnerable I make myself, the more, I realise, he loves me.
And it's so much effort! To slip past all those defenses, to say what's at the core of my being, to put myself out there, to be denied or accepted, is so incredibly hard. It's terrifying, it's scary, and past history seems to help only a little. But everytime I do it, I get my heart back.
There was a point once where I believed that I would trust my lover with my life, but not my self. These days? I'm not so sure. I have now told my boy things that I have never told another soul, living or dead. I have told him things that I would never admit to myself. I have dredged up the most horrendous memories and shared the terrible things that lay there. He has my self now. I trust him not just with my life, but with my me.
To me, love really is a matter of vulnerability. When I lower every guard I have and tell my lover secrets of mine, and they hold those secrets to their heart, that is love. In this way, I guess, I have friends that I love, that I can share my innermost self with, and friends that I don't.
And then there's my lover. I think I share that same love, but it's tempered - I'm always watching what I say, because I never want to disappoint him. I've had breakups before, and so maybe part of this is a fear of not wanting to give myself entirely to him. Or perhaps it's a fear that he'll leave me if he gets too close to my heart and sees what I think I am.
Of course, when I do let him in, he never leaves me. Half the time it leaves me in tears - when I realise that he's just accepted who I am and he's still there, it affects me like nothing else. And I've revealed demons of mine that I'm sure anyone else would need to do some serious soul-searching about. But he didn't. Every neurosis. Every secret. Every demon. He took them all, and then embraced me harder. And the more vulnerable I make myself, the more, I realise, he loves me.
And it's so much effort! To slip past all those defenses, to say what's at the core of my being, to put myself out there, to be denied or accepted, is so incredibly hard. It's terrifying, it's scary, and past history seems to help only a little. But everytime I do it, I get my heart back.
There was a point once where I believed that I would trust my lover with my life, but not my self. These days? I'm not so sure. I have now told my boy things that I have never told another soul, living or dead. I have told him things that I would never admit to myself. I have dredged up the most horrendous memories and shared the terrible things that lay there. He has my self now. I trust him not just with my life, but with my me.
