A tiny, unconventional guide to always loving someone
Life is tough guys.
There’s so much to deal with — other people, animals, food, things to do, people to love, people to lose, food eating, stuffing the face with as much food as possible.
Look it’s mostly just about eating, I’ll be honest with you. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is deluded.
But sometimes people confuse eating feelings for loving romantic feelings. It happens. Don’t be ashamed.
Now, if you have never loved a person before, this is apparently less ideal than the alternative, which is to have:
a) Loved
And/or
b) Lost
A person (and NOT…just a chicken wing).
That sounds like crazy talk to me. So let me get this straight — it is apparently BETTER to have poured your soul into another person and watch on helplessly as they walk away, never to look back again, leaving you floundering like an abandoned puffer fish.
Or so the saying goes…
I’d like to dispense some worldly advice on how to proceed should you find yourself still loving someone uncontrollably.
1. Firstly, accept it. Accept the whole God dam lot of it. Whatever you’re feeling. Just go for it. Pick it up, hold it out in your hands and coo at it like a tiny little bird. That little bird is your broken heart. Hold it tightly.
2. Now throw that bird into the air and WATCH IT FLY!
3. If the bird is not flying, please contact local animal services immediately. I won’t have this bird’s death on my hands.
4. There is no bird.
5. METAPHORS.
6. You should look back on the past when you loved that person and think about everything that happened. Wasn’t it a rare, happy, unforgettable and beautiful time in your life? Think of all those crazy moments.. All the memories? Yep, grab those too. Gather them all. Don’t become embittered through the battle and forget all of a sudden. Don’t let them flutter away like the torn up pages of a love letter or the ashes of the photos you most definitely did not burn because they’re on your hard drive, duh.
Please stop burning your hard drive.
Put. the hard drive. down.
Why do any of this? Because all of this was worth something to you once and it will always be worth something to you. You can’t deny it. You can’t put off any suffering like it’s some kind of ‘lay buy’ item that you can’t afford right now, and will deal with later. You have to deal with it at some point. It will catch up to you. And Suffering has a lay buy policy of 28 days, quite possibly.
And as one very wise housemate recently said: ‘think of everything in your life that was the most worthwhile thing you’ve ever experienced. I guarantee there was some element of suffering involved in getting to that point’.
So feel ALL THE EMOTIONS. Also, try to live with a meditation guru, like me, they’re good value.
7. Don’t feel like taking the one way ticket downtown to memory lane? No worries, I’ll go first and make some memories for you. It’s 3am and you’re sitting in your bathtub, drunk off your face, fully clothed and trying to brush your teeth. He’s also drunk and trying to climb in to the bathtub to brush his teeth. It makes no sense, this is not a place for hygiene-related manoeuvring, please stop that immediately.
You both start laughing hysterically.
‘We’re so crazy in this bathtub!’
Someone mentions the word pizza and you think, shit, we need pizza right now! But you’ll never make it out of that bathtub. You’ll pass out there, intertwined with them because they are all you need in that moment, only you won’t know that until it’s too late.
That’s a memory you’ll keep for future reference.
That’s a feeling you’ll learn to recognise in time when the right person comes along.
Cherish it because when they leave — and they always will — you’ll want to remember every little thing. This will be the first sign of when you come alive once again.
8. Look, I don’t mind if you borrow some of my memories: he’s bleeding from his arm and waving his hands around. ‘You’re bleeding!’ you shout, but he’s not listening. This is the drunkest he’s ever been. He stares at you, his eyes widening. ‘oh my god, oh my god, oh my god’.
‘What, what is it?’, you say, distressed after having to wake him up from off the pavement and then again in the taxi.
‘OH GOD. OH GOD. You’re the most beautiful girl in the entire universe! WOW, I can’t believe it what is this life?!’ he cries out, completely distressed. He passes out, bleeding. He has no recollection of it the next day. You remind him he cut his elbow. He laughs, pulls his shirt up and looks amazed by the bandage there.
You ask him if he remembers flipping out in the elevator over you but he doesn’t remember.
No matter — you will always remember.
How fucking wonderful is that?
(goodbye to 9)
10. ‘It can be like our honeymoon’, you say, sitting in the park for an impromptu picnic after you pretend to fake marry each other in order to placate his mother’s fears of living in sin.
11. You’re reminded that you’re not really married to each other. Mostly at the airport before he goes back to Germany and says he is afraid of settling down too young. You brush this off while eating a chicken wrap and tell him to story worrying. You ignore everything, especially the chasms of doubt in his voice. You only hear the vibrating echoes of loneliness that characterise the next three weeks of his absence, only to be replaced by the calming feeling that comes from his return and how the vintage gold love heart that dangles from your neck seems to placate all doubt.
That love heart is not a real heart. You still have yours in your chest cavity. Let that dangle from inside of you, let that push down any doubt that might surface. Don’t remember how his sister would whatsapp you late at night from Berlin, broken words flashing across your screen cruelly,
but he told he will come with you to Germany
and that he want Marry you
we bought the heart
and he searched for a Marry ring
- did he?
Yes. He asked the man. And we looked.
12. You’ll be sitting in a circle on the rocks, huddled around a bonfire, the crashing ocean to your left, looming cliffs to the right, passing whiskey around and telling ghost stories. He takes your hand and you think, how can this ever come to an end?
And it never does, because here it is, immortalised in words.
12. When you find yourself going over the same things over and over again — the way they walked away, the way they came back, the way you walked out of that diner despite a whole plate of fried chicken and sweet potato fries sitting before you (seriously, why is this the part you can’t get past?!)
Or the way you made coffee for him when he was trying to come back to you. You spilt the coffee in a rush to bring it to him and in return he rushed towards you, grabbing your hands, looking in your eyes. That was how you knew he still loved you and maybe always would; when you knew that people could still do that, even though they’re not with you anymore.
Think about the time they got trapped in your fire escape and you left them there for a little bit too long for a bit of revenge, the way your eyes would travel to that stupid art thing about love that you bought on a whim — how you had your names engraved on it — okay that was too far why did you do that. Definitely tear that thing down.
But all of that is part of the process of healing. Meditate on it for a little while then cast it aside. Free up some space, make some room in your brain. And for God’s sake, sort out that fire escape issue — your building is a hazard to all people!
13. Give yourself enough distance from them, but once you’re in a better place, rekindle the friendship. Don’t lose people you truly love. Maybe they’ll still be awesome at the end of it.
14. When you do rekindle the friendship and meet up for burgers, and you find yourself starting to well up with tears with every chip you eat, knowing the meal will soon be over and the sweet, sweet burgers will be gone, but also how they too will be gone, don’t hold back. Cry if you want. Cry all the time. I’m all about crying.
Just know that one day you will stop crying.
Or at least, that’s what you’ll tell yourself and it might not be true. But that’s okay too. It’s okay to want to cry for the rest of your life.
Own it.
15. Try not to fall apart completely when your eyes give you away. Yes you still care. Yes they can still tell. Don’t even try to hide it. Instead, start singing, ‘I saw the sign and it OPENED UP MY EYES’, then do a little dance shuffle number. They’ll bloody love it!
16. Lie in the park with them. Go to hold their hand automatically then withdraw it almost immediately, hoping they won’t notice (they will). Definitely hold down the tears when they talk about that new girl they have a crush on, even though they hesitate so much before telling you. Don’t think about being in parks and having picnics and honeymoons.
It was a fake honeymoon.
Be happy for them.
17. Take everything they wrote to you, every single word. Read them all and smile, knowing it was real, it lived and you felt it in every part of you. Take it all in, knowing how it was unique and powerful and that no one on earth will ever truly experience what you did with that person. It was yours, it always will be.
It’s marked down in your soul, don’t you see?
Oh look, you’ve stopped crying.
Walk home now.
Go back to yourself.
Be you again.
Feel better yet?
