Good Evening Internet,
I got broken up with. A boy I've known and loved for years ran away to the other side of the world and broke up with me during a video chat. It's been 48 hours at this point. I'm lucky in that I have an amazing support system in my life that just appeared, and took me by surprise. In the shower, after a run my mother took me on, it occurred to me that I should take the conversations I want to have in the coming future to the masses.
Part of being broken up with is getting told a lot of things about love and relationships by people who care for you and want to show you the bright side. For example, my mother asked if I was thinking of the pros about no longer dating the boy I thought I wanted to spend my life with. My aunt shared with me the story behind her divorce and the wonderful man she has in her life now. My friends talked about sharing, compromise and understanding. These conversations, as well as the conversation I had with the boy, swirled in my mind as I ran this afternoon and I realized that some of it wasn't compatible with other parts, some were directly in conflict with each other. I know what my own idea of love is, I suppose, but having thought I found it and being told I was wrong, and then hearing a variety of different definitions and conceptions, I'm left confused. I decided I would talk to one of the kindest people I know, who has been married for nearly thirty years to another of the kindest people I know. It was in the shower I realized that I might not be the only person, single, committed, in between, heartbroken, gloriously happy, that is confused about this. I know I want to talk to the people I know about what they think love means, how it feels, how you know you have it, what a relationship is, what it means to be in one. I think it would be selfish to not share what I hear with other people who are asking the same questions, which I think is everyone. The frustrating thing is that I know already what I will find out, and that is that there isn't one definitive answer. There will be differences of opinion and contradictions. I don't know what that means in terms of this blog or any of us in our quest for answers, but maybe we find new ways of explaining how we think and feel about love and new ways of thinking about love and that helps each of us make up our own ideas and communicate them to those around us.
