Love: What Does It Mean?
I often
find myself revisiting the mere notion of love. I often wonder how it relates
to my life on a general and then a personal level. I find myself constantly
stumbling over this hopelessly romantic gesture of love that I never can seem
to recreate in reality. And today, I believe, was the first day I questioned
why. Why is love so important to me? Why do I feel the need to redefine it
every other season? Why do I throw it away and then pick it up in my loneliest
hour? Why?
If I
haven’t openly admitted it I will now – I feel that any issue I face today is
directly related to something I experienced growing up that I haven’t fully
resolved. Instead of coming to terms with various things in my childhood I
internalized everything. That internalization allowed me to mentally escape my
problems for years. That is until I woke up and nothing seemed right. No matter
how much I’d try to change my here and now everyday I’d wake with the same
feeling. I feel that the only way to change my present is to resolve my past.
If I can come to a steadfastness about my past I’m sure I could clearly foresee
my future and instill any changes necessary in my present to guarantee the
future I see.
I
constantly redefine love because I starve for it. I starve for it because I never
received it from my mother or father. I for too long automatically assumed my
parents birthed me therefore they loved me. And I’m sure somewhere in their
minds they felt they did.
However,
my parents parented me, which is a completely different concept altogether.
Sure, I never felt hunger. Great, I always had a roof above my head. Wonderful,
I had clothes on my back. And I feel, sadly, as if my mother feels satisfied
with accomplishing these things. She provided me with the bare minimum and, to
her, she did her job. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate those things. I
acknowledge how for her these are milestones higher than what she had as a
child. She didn’t have these things growing up. She didn’t have a mother and
the father she had was, at that time, dangerously addicted to drugs. So I’ve
heard the stories of how she came home frequently to no electricity and no food
in the refrigerator. I’ve heard how she didn’t have clothes to attend school,
which partly contributed to her dropping out. These things and others have
given my mother the mentality that she isn’t good enough and that she has to
fight for everything in her life. So while I know she went hungry sometimes to
make sure there was enough food to feed me, while I understand we moved
constantly throughout my childhood but I always had somewhere to stay, while I
appreciate that I always had clothes on my back … I still somehow feel as if I
needed more.
Not only
did I need to be sheltered from harm. Not only did I need to be parented. I
needed these things and I appreciate having them. However, I needed to be
prepared for life and I needed to be loved. And somehow I feel those two things
were lost in translation. I’m sure that if my mother knew how to provide these
things she would’ve. Yet, as they weren’t provided I’m forced to define these
things for myself, my life and the life of my children if I have any.
And I’m
not going to lie, sometimes I feel as broken as my mother; I don’t feel good
enough. I’ve come to realize that my mother was supposed to teach me how to
love myself. But I don’t think she loves herself. And the evidence she doesn’t
is in the men she chooses to start relationships with. These men offer her
nothing and often are verbally or physically abusive. I figure if a woman loved
herself then she wouldn’t allow anyone in her life that would diminish that
love. Sadly, my mother has never had a successful relationship. She, also, has
never been without a man. So that, to me, speaks that she’d rather be with
anything for fear of having nothing. However, she fails to realize that you can
be with anything and have nothing at the same time.
My
father’s role in my life, I feel, was to show me the character of a good man.
Unfortunately, my father never played much of a role in my life so I never
learned the character of a good man. Instead, from him I learned the character
of an alcoholic. And from the men my mother brought around me I learned the
character of weak willed and complacent men. My father should have been there
to set the bar for any other man in my life. But if he wasn’t there and there
was no bar set then what do I have to take forward into any interaction I have
with men?
So the
absence of love from my parents ensured that I 1. Don’t know how to love
myself, 2. Don’t know how to find a man worthy enough to love and 3. Don’t
understand how love is established and sustained in a successful relationship.
And that’s why I constantly come back to love and attempt to redefine it for
me. That’s why I throw love away to later rummage through the recesses of my
mind to find it again.
I
honestly feel that although we come into this world alone we’re challenged to
find a mate to love. That’s what makes life worthwhile. No one wants to go
through life to eventually expire alone. That’s why I starve for love.
So it’s
great that I understand the problem. Now if only I was able to find a solution.
