On love

Coming to terms with my need for love one paragraph at a time

Yesterday my wife and I had to put one of our two cats to sleep. It was a terribly difficult day filled with sadness. As I cried I watched Marjorie cry. What struck me was how much the pain was compounded by seeing someone I love upset. It got me thinking about love.

Anyone who knows me knows that I do not enjoy alone time. I try to surround myself with people any chance I get, and when I *am* alone, I try to stay as busy as one can. My therapist and I have often bounced between “that’s unhealthy” and “the human connection is more important than anything.” While I do wish I loved myself more, I still believe in the latter.

I would never go as far as to believe in the old saying “happiness is only real when shared,” but I do believe (at least for me) there’s levels to it. I love receiving good news, but my first thought is to tell Marjorie. I hate hearing bad news, but my first thought is to go to Marjorie for comfort. To me, comfort is the key word. We can try to comfort ourselves, but having someone to lean on makes everything so much more bearable or exciting (depending on if it’s bad or good, of course).

A thought exercise: you find out you won $1 Million. Would the first thing you do not be to tell someone special to you?

Anyway, I am aware I am rambling.

I have been thinking about this a lot as Marjorie and I prepare for our move to Philadelphia. We are going to a place we both love, but a place where we have far fewer connections. At least to start, no longer can I go through my phone contacts and text people “wanna grab dinner tonight?” At least to start, no longer can I decide in a month I want to do some silly event that I invite half of New York to. It will certainly be an adjustment.

I will greatly miss the poetry community I worked so hard to build. Knowing there was a night every month I would be surrounded by incredible creatives with common interests and goals made me feel like I was a part of something. The community will live on, but I know I will slowly fade out of the picture.

I will greatly miss my friends, even though they’re a quick text away. I’m sure I’ll see everyone at least every-other month, but that’s quite the difference from weekly or bi-weekly. I do believe I have the fear that this will almost be like graduation. You go from seeing people all the time to seeing them sporadically and, again, you sort of fade out of the picture.

Still, I know we will make Philly friends as well, and at the least, we have each other. I’ve written plenty about platonic love, but I would be remiss not to reflect on romantic love as well.

Marjorie is my rock. Maybe that’s cliche, but from a financial/mental health standpoint, I’ve been an absolute mess for over a year now. There are times I’ve been distant, times I’ve been moody, and times I’ve been a stranger. Still, Marjorie has been unwavering in her love for me. She has stood up for me, instilled confidence in me, and reminded me that most of all, I am loved. I often joke to Marjorie that if she ever died, I’d die within a week after. (She doesn’t like that, lol). Truthfully, I hope that’s the case. A life without her is a life not worth living to me.

Which brings me to my overall point for this post. I feel everything comes back to love. With Marjorie, I feel like I have a partner for life. I have my person. I have someone who is always there, in every sense of the word. In my friends, I have people who celebrate the wins and comfort me in the losses. I have people who I can feel community with, people I can relate to, people I can experience with.

I don’t know if I will ever feel truly comfortable being alone.

I do know that as long as I have the feeling I am not alone, even if I am alone for some moments, I will have something to hold onto.

**

Song of the Week: North Poles by Samia

Please listen to this song. Please. The lyric “When you see yourself in someone, how can you look at them?” is quite possibly my favorite lyric ever written.