i've been tasked to write two blogposts on love for the magazine i write for.
it is, by no means, an official stint- i know the head of my team quite well, enough to have gone out for cocktails on multiple evenings. despite that, it has enough weight to have a spot on my cv and i tend to take assignments i need to write for quite seriously regardless of how frivolous the actual request is. normally, a trait i feel proud of myself for but it's been a month since the editor in chief reached out to me and i haven't been able to give her a single sentence.
love was something i couldn't really shut up about. a short peruse through this blog will lend enough credence to that. but i find it increasingly hard to muster any worthy sentiments about it now, or at least worthy enough to write about and feel good about other people reading it. i do have thoughts about it but any of that is reserved for crumpled up papers i stuff in my pillowcase or in impulsive conversations with my friends, not in a magazine.
recently having been disillusioned with love in any romantic sense (and that is what i usually refer to when i think of love), i knew the moment the task was given to me that i'd have to be very careful about denouncing romance and the great ideal of it while writing the pieces itself- none of the people in the editing team, nor the readership, necessarily needs to see any of that cynicism. especially when the next issue comes out for valentines.
i don't want to be careful about it though. there's something to be said about how everything i write always betrays how i actually feel about certain things- i will shake someone's hand quite happily but i cannot spare any words of kindness for them. it's not something i feel all that terrible about anymore, if abstract, unbearably shitty writing is where i can imbue any honesty, i shall do it. but i cannot do it right now, not where it matters.
the prompt for one of the pieces was left completely open, the only requirement was that it needed to center around love somehow. writing about friendship is too passé, writing about family is too touchy, writing about loving yourself is something i have zero interest in doing, and i cannot possibly write about romance without getting a little sharp.
or a little sad.
i think the idea i had of love was so incredibly one-dimensional that it very much felt like a noose around my neck and the only person who could cut the rope was this non-existent construction of love incarnate- someone with a sharp enough knife to cut through rough twines of rope in a second. unfortunately, i think whoever possesses a knife that sharp also has the tools to tighten the rope itself and knock the chair underneath my feet away. you don't get to choose which act they do. you're choking on your own spit, clawing away at the slipknot regardless. just pray you're lucky enough to find someone who will cut the rope for you, or at least try their best to.
love really isn't like that though. condensing love- or to be fair, specifically romance- into a horrific metaphor is something i can imagine a sad little teen on the internet would do (and if it isn't already too on-the-nose, this was me even just a year or two ago on this blog). it's not something i like doing so much anymore. and even if i do do it, considering i overuse metaphors like commas, drawing a parallel between something that's supposed to be the sweetest emotion in the world to hanging yourself isn't tasteful. it is true you cannot untie the rope yourself, but you're not born into the world with a rope around your neck either.
love will not save you just as much as it cannot doom you.
i wonder, though.
i haven't used the word love this much in so long. i've become uncomfortable seeing it or hearing it. the shape of it feels wrong in my mouth so i stuff it down and choke. and that's completely okay. i do need to get used to thinking about it again if i want to produce something i'm even remotely satisfied with for the magazine. which is not to say i haven't been thinking about it at all, it's just strictly been around what words i can slap down on the document i have. anything i've thought of feels disingenuous and blasé, and for all the negative words i imagine people might assign to my writing- cringe, overdramatic, pretentious- i can't let it be disingenuous.
let me try to be kinder about it.
two of my close friends went through major breakups recently. we went out to a bar nearly every night of the first week after simply so they had company, and while life felt so syrupy and honeyed when i realized i'm someone these two people can lean on, i remembered a time earlier this year where i was in arguably a very similar position but i just hoped my bedframe could take my entire weight instead, no shoulders to be found. cold water down my neck. i've wiped it all away now, but i can feel the chilled ghost rush of it at times. it's a time that feels so dreamlike to me now, any memory i have of the first seven months of this year is swirled by this persistent haze that i can't brush away, but i think it's for the better. very recently, i cut and colored my hair differently to then and i look back at pictures of white-haired me and i feel a small jolt. the restless cottony feel of recognizing the dead-eyed look in every photo, of realizing love was the end-all and be-all to this person in the photo and that's the sole thing i'm having trouble with now.
but i still love every other construction of love. contrary to how skeptical i am about romance now, i always have. i love looking at the crow's feet around my mom's eyes and knowing it's because she's been smiling at my dad everyday for 42 years. i love the asthma pump in my mom's bag so she can hand it to my dad whenever he needs it. i love how my mom relaxes into her pillow when i kiss her goodnight, all her pain-wracked shivering easing just a little bit. it's a momentary relief and it hurts me deeply that i cannot permanently take any of that away, but as someone who spent the last two years begging for a moment's relief, i cannot downplay the importance of that small second of painlessness i can afford her.
i love the way my friends' eyes widen when we catch each other on our way to different classes. the impromptu hugs, so often that i don't freeze when i feel their arms around me anymore. still, they ask if i was okay with that. i reassure them each time. i love the string of texts announcing when everyone is free so we can go check out that brunch place on the water. i love looking down the hallway in the apartment i share with my friend to see the contrasting led striplight colors in our own rooms. i love the slow, steady realization that stopping myself from getting too attached to my friends does not protect me as much as i thought it did. there are scarier things to get attached to.
there's always a certain emotion i have in my head before i start writing something, no matter how small it is. from a text to a full-length story, i like it when every sentence is infused with a little bit of that emotion i had in mind (it was confusion for this entry. quiet, controlled frazzle). the issue is i don't know what emotion i want to put forward for the magazine, and i cannot get started until i've decided. there's just so much to untangle before i can reasonably write something centered about love that's meant for other people to read. i keep coming back to love (romance) being an all-encompassing savior, something that plasters all the cracks in the walls, but love doesn't do that. it never will. all the sweetness i can muster up with which i can write a piece on love won't be enough to hide how far i want to run away from it now.
but i know, despite all my waffling, they are going to be hopeful pieces. i don't know yet where i'll fish the hope from but if my notions on love itself can't bring forward any singular, titular emotions, i know my feelings on hope will.
two sides of the same coin? perhaps. i just need to find a way to balance right on the edge between heads and tails.
