A Meditation on Love

Originally written August 21, 2018 I sit out on my balcony and watch cars pass by. It is a way for me to feel the wind that makes a short detour on its way from one end of the island to another. It snakes its way through my open balcony door and through my open bedroom window, briefly touching my sheets, leaving behind a scent. I remember what her skin smelled like when she had that same wind-kissed, dried sweat feeling, the hair that bunched up next to her ears and would smell like the earth after rain. It smelled like home.

I fell in love a lot, and now I sit here doubting that it was love at all. What if it was need all along, do I love water or do I need water? It feels like a stupid question to ask. I never provided for my own needs, I never made myself whole, and so I grabbed and grasped for something else that will make me whole. The job. The country. The cause. The girl.

Desperately clinging to and worshipping these things because I didn’t want to worship myself - that’s the most mainstream, banal thing one can do. Why worship oneself so deeply? But instead of just treating myself secularly, I still had a relationship - of hate. Towards myself. I didn’t grant myself the peace to just be, to just let the world go by and leave me behind for a little bit.

It’s such a cruel thing to realize that the love you have for someone is more about you than about them. It’s the other way too, the love others have for you is more about them than about you. Sure, some of it is about who you are, what you want, but it is so much about how they make you feel, how you make them feel. We’ve all created this special combo lock in our own heads that says “I won’t release the happy chemicals unless I have this combination of things.”

I am quite sad. I have wasted a lot of time I feel. I have spent so much work, done so much time all on someone who will never love me back the way I need. The part that will make me feel whole. If only I loved myself, only was willing to sacrifice to myself what I sacrificed for them. I wonder, if I do the same, will I finally provide myself the love I am looking for?