the end of love
i don't want to fall in love anymore
I don’t want to fall in love anymore. I did, at some point. I thought it would be nice to love again, to be loved again, to have feelings for someone that involved fireworks and breathlessness and butterflies in my stomach. I thought it would be great to hold someone’s hand, to cuddle up next to a warm body at night, to make dinner for someone other than myself again. I would have welcomed the flirting, the 3 hour middle of the night phone calls, the realization that I was falling in love and all the heady feelings that come with that.
When I was young, I thought love was forever. You fall in love, date a while, get married, grow old together. Your love sustains you through hard times, cold nights, long days. It keeps you balanced and grounded, it makes you feel worthy, it gives you a sense of your place in the world. But here’s the strange thing about love: it doesn’t always stay. Feelings change, people change, people don’t change. Or the world changes and makes you question everything about your life. An existential crisis looms. You hit mid-life and suddenly decide you want things to be different. Love doesn’t always last and you risk losing your heart when you enter into a relationship.
We fell in love over emails and texts, over MSN Messenger, and so many phone calls. It was thrilling, to fall deep in love like that, and my world that had been lonely and depressing was suddenly changed into something beautiful and forgiving. We went on like that for months, until he visited here from California and we decided this was it, this was the real deal, and he would be moving here to Long Island.
We maintained an incredibly loving relationship for years. We were kind to each other. We met each other’s needs. We were affectionate and loving and cared for each other with a depth previously unknown to me. We saved each other from dreary lives, from old bad habits, from ourselves. We wrote lengthy missives in birthday cards about how our love was special, how perfect we were for one another. This was real love, I thought. We signed our cards with forever.
It turned out forever was mythical. That’s something I should have known going in. I should not have placed my trust in an idea, a concept. For a while, we grew stronger as the years went on. Through my depression and his alcoholism, we buoyed each other, we held each other tight, we swore we’d get through everything together. And we did, until we didn’t. I didn’t recognize the signs of him falling out of love until way after he left, when I looked back on those pandemic months we were at home and there was a shift in our relationship. We ended rather ungracefully. My heart was broken, my soul was crushed, my idea of forever shattered.
I don’t want to do that again. I don’t want to go through the trials and tribulations of dating, of getting to know someone, of becoming intimate with a partner knowing that it could all come crashing down at any minute. If this makes me a broken person, then that’s what I am. But I blame the man who broke me, not myself. I was hurt, abandoned, cast aside like nothing after fourteen years together. Why would I put myself in a place where that could all happen again, when you fall into a loveless sort of love?
I have love in my life. It’s familial love, platonic love, and that’s ok. I don’t need romantic love when I have people in my immediate world who shower me with affection, who appreciate me and like spending time with me. I know, romantic love is different and can give me different things, but I do not want those things, thank you. The idea of opening myself up to someone again only to have my emotions used against me keeps me from seeking out companionship.
As much as I miss being in love with someone, I miss reciprocating love more. I am a people pleaser, a giver. I want to create happiness for everyone. I love showering people with attention, doing for them, giving them all of my heart. But I can’t do all that anymore. I am scarred and I am scared. The idea of sharing my world with someone gives me great pause.
1 Corinthians 13:4–8a (ESV) Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
I think of these words often. This is what love was for me with him at first. This is the way love should be. And I know that is idealist of me and maybe I read too many fairy tales when I was a kid, but I truly believed in happily ever after. I believed that was my story to tell, that I had finally found true love, real love, a deep, binding love that would always be patient and kind, that would always be there.
I no longer believe that kind of love exists, at least not for me. I’m done. I don’t want to open my heart to anyone again, I don’t want to expose myself to being hurt, to being unappreciated. I found a strange happiness being alone. I can take all the love I have to give and give it to my family, my friends, my dog, who reciprocate at every turn. I am appreciated, my love is appreciated is by them. That’s good enough for me.
I know my love story is not everyone else’s. Forever does exist for some people. Love can be eternally grand and all encompassing and true. I’m just done trying to find that for myself, and I’m good with that. I’m working on loving myself, on regaining my sense of worth. I will spend the rest of my days alone, but not lonely. I will cheer on my friends who are in loving relationships. But I will not envy them. It’s just not for me.
Today is his birthday. In years past, I’d be writing out a card full of platitudes and telling him how much I love him and how I want to grow old with him. Instead, I am writing this. Life moves on, even when love doesn’t.