Dear O..... It's not a sonnet..... But then again..... I am not Shakespeare.
I am a great believer in human beings, and I'd like to naively conclude that most people end up falling in love for the right reasons..... friendship, common interests, physical attraction..... When in love, we tend to obviously see the best in each other; through our rose tinted glasses all the negatives are ignored and wiped off the slate and all we want to do is guard each other, condense on the positives and stroke our colourful brushes across our love canvas with a sole aim of painting the most attractive portrait of our relationship to everyone around us.....OUR perfect work of art.
But somewhere between the rainbow of warm bright colourful shades and positive expectations, the lines get blurred and we start feeling unappreciated and taken for granted........ The positives get hurled out the window and the negatives dominate the beautiful canvas, then all of a sudden we start noticing the cracks and dark hues, the brush strokes get angrier and more aggressive, things get blown out of proportion, fists are clenched, fingers are pointed and it is quite unclear as to who changed first and who followed suit.
"You don't make love to me any more"..... "You've suddenly changed"..... "You don't call me as often as you used to"..... "You are not there for me"..... "It's not you, its me".....
All of a sudden their ideas are not as great as they used to be and we start "shooting them down"..... Making everything about them feel so unimportant. By the time we realise it our ideal match is shorter, the snores are louder, the farts smellier and their table manners is equivalent to a drowsy cow chewing curd.
In no time pointing out 10 negatives is easier than pointing out 5 positives. Everything comes to a stand still.
According to my husband, I gave up before he could even blink his eyes as a married man..... Of-course that's not 100% true; I am known to be very patient with love matters but my sudden exit took him by surprise. He never imagined that enough would sooner than later be enough. I wont use my state of affairs as an example, but I will stay close to home.
In a recent heart to heart chat with my dearest brother, he asked me whether I knew why he moved out of the house he shared with my lovely sister in-law and their two kids; I had a vague idea but I let him tell his version anyway.
“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
I am a great believer in human beings, and I'd like to naively conclude that most people end up falling in love for the right reasons..... friendship, common interests, physical attraction..... When in love, we tend to obviously see the best in each other; through our rose tinted glasses all the negatives are ignored and wiped off the slate and all we want to do is guard each other, condense on the positives and stroke our colourful brushes across our love canvas with a sole aim of painting the most attractive portrait of our relationship to everyone around us.....OUR perfect work of art.
But somewhere between the rainbow of warm bright colourful shades and positive expectations, the lines get blurred and we start feeling unappreciated and taken for granted........ The positives get hurled out the window and the negatives dominate the beautiful canvas, then all of a sudden we start noticing the cracks and dark hues, the brush strokes get angrier and more aggressive, things get blown out of proportion, fists are clenched, fingers are pointed and it is quite unclear as to who changed first and who followed suit.
"You don't make love to me any more"..... "You've suddenly changed"..... "You don't call me as often as you used to"..... "You are not there for me"..... "It's not you, its me".....
All of a sudden their ideas are not as great as they used to be and we start "shooting them down"..... Making everything about them feel so unimportant. By the time we realise it our ideal match is shorter, the snores are louder, the farts smellier and their table manners is equivalent to a drowsy cow chewing curd.
In no time pointing out 10 negatives is easier than pointing out 5 positives. Everything comes to a stand still.
According to my husband, I gave up before he could even blink his eyes as a married man..... Of-course that's not 100% true; I am known to be very patient with love matters but my sudden exit took him by surprise. He never imagined that enough would sooner than later be enough. I wont use my state of affairs as an example, but I will stay close to home.
“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.” ― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones
His version was quite dramatic I have to admit; (soundtrack) one dark night, he woke up to find her standing by his side of the bed with a knife in her hand. She stood there for almost an hour and all he could do was stay still praying that this dark knife gripping shadow spares him.
She sent him a text the next day expressing that she was actually contemplating on stabbing him and that the only reason she withdrew from the idea was the fact that she didn't know how she'd have gotten rid of his body.
Funny as that scenario sounds, it scared the poor guy shitless. But I totally understood where she was coming from because I've ALMOST been there and stated that considering the situation, I'd have helped her dump his bloody body.
Mark is a very artistic guy and I remember days he would spend endless hours painting the most beautiful paintings for her, he'd make her beautiful jewellery and cook her the most amazing meals which were served at the rooftop on a candle-lit table right under the stars.
Their relationship was an inch from perfection...... She had her man and he had his woman.
So how did two people who once absolutely adored the goosebumps out of each other end up wanting to drive knives into each other? When do things take such a sudden U turn? Is it that most of are used to that sneaky vicious cycle that makes us unknowingly sabotage our own relationships and take a quick exit when things don't seem to work out to our own favour? Is there a way that this vicious cycle can be broken and the positives not so easily forgotten?
I am not implying that people should endure a bad relationship because they are clinging on to the hope that somehow things will drift back to the hunky-dory way they were before, but I feel that most of us break up over issues that can easily be sorted out through compromise and the desire to work towards a common purpose.
"I don't know why I still love him/her" we sometimes say.
Now I am not an expert in human relationships, but can in every right say that I have a vague idea of how two people who love and care about each other should treat each other.
Love is a general word used to sum up many words..... Words like understanding, respect, trust, affection, patience, loyalty, generosity, honesty, reminisce, growth, kindness, security, appreciation, admiration, partnership, fun, friendship, a common purpose..... I could go on and on, it is only when those traits are totally wiped out of a relationship that two people can be said not to be good for each other, not to warrant one another.
Only then can they move on without feeling that constant heaviness in their conscience that keeps on saying "YOU ARE JUST ANOTHER LAZY ARSE WHO LET GO OF SOMETHING GREAT. GOOD LUCK IN YOUR NEXT CYCLE..... AND EVERY OTHER CYCLE THEREAFTER".
