Love and Other Indoor Sports

Based on my last blog, you might be wondering: is she just a teensy bit bitter or something?

Um, I’ll get back to you on that. But first, let me flip a u-turn and show you what lies on the other side of cynicism.

Sometimes I think we are in the Golden Age of love. We’ve had a handful of social revolutions, and now slowly but surely we’re moving past the notion that there are those whom we are not allowed to love – whether this distinction be based on race, religion, gender, or any other dividing line. Not that love hasn’t always crossed boundaries (and broken them down) .

Believe you me, I love Love. I identify with Love. I’m almost certain Love and I have the same birthday, or at least Love must a Gemini too. If I had to be any emotion, I’d like to be an inexplicable force that makes no logical sense but opens people up and changes their lives. Love. What else could seem sweet and flirty one minute, callous and fickle the next?

At this point I must note a distinction: while I find the bullshit that seems to come part and parcel with relationships utterly repugnant (and no, I am not advocating free love, bootie calls, friends with benefits, polygamy, or celibacy) love is, without a doubt, the most incredible thing there is.

“But, oracle of love, doesn’t love make us want to be relationships? How can we be willing to die for someone and not want to be committed to them and have their babies?”

Um, I’ll get back to you on that one too.

I say this because I believe that no matter how heartbroken, how devastated, how certain you are that you will never ever ever love again, you have to have faith that you can and you will, even when you don’t.

I say this because that which has the power to eviscerate you even through your invisible chakras and slice you wide upon must, in some upside down cake kinda way, be a damn good thing.

I say this because while the gurus and psychologist are trying to work out some formula for what makes love work (common values + commitment + togetherness=lifelong love?) we all know its best to just listen to your heart.

I say this because that seems to be so utterly, painfully, catastrophically difficult, and I’d like to figure out why.

So dear friends, lovers, and weird strangers skulking around the blogosphere in search of intriguing new online buddies, this brings me in roundabout way to the conclusion, or rather, the beginning, that I’ve been trying to reach for the past two blogs now: How does love work?