XL

Have you ever loved somebody? Love them deeply and truly, until you thought there was nothing left of you that didn’t love them, and there was nothing more of them left to love? Have you ever just lain in the arms of a lover and simply mused on the love that you share, a mutual love, a love of equal measure. Is that even possible? How would we know? How do you quantify and compare? Have you loved someone who loved you less but still, loved, and that was enough for you? Has the loving itself ever become the object, rather than the beloved, so that their affection or evidence of reciprocation became unnecessary – it was your own love you chased, the knowledge of your love for them, the ecstasy of it, regardless of their position in the affair. Have you ever loved somebody in the midst of their not loving, or their rejection, or their destruction. Did you feel that love is destruction and that’s just how it is.

Our perception of love is entirely metered by our experiences of it. There is no absolute. There is no true North. It is what you feel it and see it and hope it and dream it to be. And whether you see it fulfilled in this way in your own life – that is the measure of joy you collect for yourself.

What a cruel game.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

[Image: OracleFox]