Seasons of Love

Love. It's a label associating complex emotional, chemical, and physical conditions from on person to an other, whether it be an object, animal, or person. English has one [perhaps two] form[s] to express love. The primary form is to simply say "Love." It's easy, complete, justified, and encompasses every possible meaning of the word; and depending on the delivery's tone, the condition of "love" can change from "you're an amazing person for whom I care/admire/enjoy" to "you hold my heart and I can't see any other way of telling you how deeply I want you." The other form is "adore," which hold meanings from "you're cute" to "I deeply care about you." Both contain the understated complication of commitment once they've been uttered from person to person.

I have always seen love as a sinusoidal experience. Perhaps it's the types of relationships I've been in, the types of people I've been around, and the expectation I've shaped from desires. Up and down, shifted left and right, positively and negatively. Passing the level plane was always cautiously regarded as a lull in emotional stability and just as easily neglected as the peaks. So deeply in love was treacherously bipolar in my view, and I didn't shake the reality of it or examine the instability with an objective eye. Not until now, at least: alone with my thoughts, sipping a bottle of wine after naming my gray hairs after Calculus theorems, as single as I've ever been in my life (which is arguably not very single, though I see it as so. Regardless...). I despise that my love has been sinusoidal throughout its existence with every love in my life. I want the exponential experience! The falling so high with every smile, the limitless, unbounded, unexpected experience!

Just thinking about this desire, the possibility, the improbable, oddly scares me. Is this a season of love? The fear of finding that pure existence for another? A song by Florence & The Machine expresses this fear so perfectly in the song "Falling":

Sometimes I wish for falling,

Wish for the release,

WIsh for falling through the air,

To give me some relief,

Because falling's not the problem,

When I'm falling I'm in peace,

It's only when I hit the ground

That causes all the grief.

I enjoy falling in love, perhaps. Sometimes I feel it's too easy for me to fall for another, always looking for the beauty, undeniable abstraction of perfection, heart and soul, intelligence, and loveliness in others through all the muck that surrounds us. So falling is easy, and I long for that relief, release, reviving quality and enjoy the feeling. But once I near the ground where I can realize that love is where I've come to, I start recoiling slightly. I fear the possibility of falling endlessly and look for that harsh surface to walk upon. That's when I gain perspective and start judging.

This is when I need to stop. There is potential for love in my life. The subtle commitment exists already, but the word itself is timid behind clenched teeth. Doubt persists as well. The question which fuels such hesitation circles the facts of relationship's disbanding so recently. How could my heart, broken, bruised, battle-worn, be ready for anything other than loneliness right now? Maybe I'm not ready at all -- but then I'm fighting a force accelerating against my boundaries and pushing me toward the brink of falling.

Falling!

The blasted word! The blasted Experience!!!

"Five hundred twenty-five thousand

six hundred minutes

Five hundred twenty-five thousand

journeys to plan

Fine hundred twenty-five thousand

six hundred minutes

How do you measure the life

of a woman or a man

In truth that she learned

or in times that he cried

In bridges he burned

or the way that she died

It's time now to sing out

though the story never ends

let's celebrate

remember a year in the life of friends."

"Seasons of Love" from Rent

This is what started it all. My seasons of love have been stark and fluid, running through life as a trudging price of enjoyment, sadness, expression, and so much more. I don't regret. Love has been presented so many different ways in my life... and now I want to build my own experience without the regulations society (any society around me) has placed upon the value of love. I want to build love with another in the fashion that we wish love to take for ourselves. Falling is only the first step, I assume.

Must I fall then? Fall appropriately? At the right time? With the right wings and the proper wind? Or does it truly matter if I fall, when, where, how...? Any of it? Who is to say but myself?

Well, that answer is easily recognized. It's the staggering spikes on the ground, ready to impale me when my love has failed to attract and entice similar emotions from another. My fear of reducing love back to its singular word spiraling around many meanings catches my breath even as I decide to allow myself to fall. Fear. Fear of Falling. Fear of experiencing life as I want to experience it. Alas... life happens with or without me.

I'll just jump off the cliff and open wide to the experience. It's the only way to move forward with me.