"Contradictions?" A Musing on How to Navigate Life and Love

For me, and many others, love is difficult to come by, and even harder to maintain. It makes me wonder if I, or my partners, or anyone in this world is really doing it wrong, or if it's just impossible for love to exist in a way that doesn't chip away at people. Maybe we're all simultaneously doing it completely wrong and inherently right, all at once, regardless of the outcome? Maybe the goal of love is not to perfect it, but to merely experience it and grow from it. After all, with all the contradictions that have to coexist to make it exist in the first place, it's a wonder we ever find it at all, let alone sometimes keep it alive. As confusing and frustrating as the contradictions may be, I think they are also beautiful, sometimes hauntingly so, and so I have written this poem about them:

I want a love that is comforting and surprising--

that makes me feel safe, while still keeping me on my toes.

I want a love that is familiar and new--

where we know each other inside and out, and yet still always have more to discover.

I want a love that is solid and fluid--

that is stable enough to overcome obstacles and adaptable enough to withstand time.

I want a love that is calming and exciting--

so I can have a sense of peace, but never get bored or feel that there is no learning and growth left.

I want a love that is mature and youthful--

where we can communicate maturely and seriously, while still enjoying the little things and having a youthful zest for life.

I want a love with closeness and independence--

that completes me and makes me feel like a part of something greater than myself, while also allowing me to be my own individual and true to myself.

I want a love that is serene and passionate--

that makes me feel like I want to fight for it, but rarely have to.

I want a love that is cerebral and sensual--

where my mind, body, heart, and soul all feel an interconnected sense of love for myself, my partner, and us together.

Love is... complicated. And beautiful. And rare. I want to find it and cherish it. I want to protect it and trust in it. I want to feel safe, but never complacent. I want to feel like we can simultaneously be all of the seemingly contradicting things that love truly is. I want us, just like love itself, to be full of opposites and similarities alike, and yet somehow just make sense.

I want that for myself and for anyone reading this and feeling like their heart is swelling up and about to burst because they already have what they want and want to hang onto it for dear life or because they are still yearning to find someone or something that makes everything click. Regardless of how or why these ideas resonate with you, I wish for you to have everything you are looking and hoping for, romantically and otherwise. After all, writing and reading are both acts of empathizing. I feel for myself and for you as I am writing this, as you are feeling for me and for yourself as you are reading this.

While I may not have found my great love yet, at least, in the process of typing these words onto this screen, I can share of myself with others and thereby participate in an act of a certain kind of love-- one that is universal, and still beautiful in its own right, as every kind of pure love is. Life and love are messy and complicated. Take time to find joy in your passions, both the people and things you are passionate about, and savor every little moment. I promise, there is peace and joy to be found, even amongst the messiness of confusing contradictions.