Roach of the Heart
January 27, 2002
I've never really appreciated Valentine's Day. Not in grade school, when you were required to bring in cards for everyone in the class. Not through most of my life as the outcast geek, where the only solace is all the great chocolate that is suddenly available. And not even in this recent, strange state of being in a relationship, full of hidden, unexpected, and often downright frustrating rules.
It's truly Hallmark's holiday. Commercially driven so foolish couples can strive to spend more and more money (and confound each other in the hunt for "the perfect gift") in an effort to prove love on one day in the year instead of actually trying to keep that love present throughout the months.
Oddly enough, while I view these as cynical beliefs, I don't consider them very bitter. I just have a poor opinion on probably too many things.
Perhaps playing counselor to the world has led to this cynicism. I don't know. I see all my friends hurting over the same thing, over and over, and I find myself starting to wonder why. After a long conversation with someone on this topic, and how some of his apparently extremely bad breakups affected him, I found myself writing a moderate sized rant. I finished, and it just felt, read right and true. Not for the opinions I hold. It's too cynical for even me. I couldn't fit it into a story. It didn't seem to work for any of my characters. It certainly wasn't a poem, or the average rant I'd post. But given the option of posting on My Shelf or in the Hall of Shame for sheer lack of any place to put it, I decided it fit more with the rants. So here's a bit of gloomy cynicism for you all. Maybe someone out there can tell me where it belongs, to what character it might be.
~ ~ ~
Love.... never really goes away. It doesn't end, it doesn't melt into nothing. Sometimes it changes, but it never really dies.
There's always a scar, if not a still throbbing, oozing wound.
It's often not pretty, either. No matter what they say; the stories, the poems, the endless songs.... When you try to make two souls be one, and still have them as two souls.... It's almost impossible. You can't mix batter and eggs so that pancakes are clearly made of those- not if they're good, socially acceptable as edible pancakes.
And when people do part, when they learn that love is not all Love's First True Kiss and Happily Ever Afters, you try to separate those souls.
It can't be done. There's always something left, some part of that Other left in you, staining and consuming.
You can never really kill off love. It's the cockroach of the emotions. No matter what you do, no matter how many different ways you try to kill it, it will just come back to haunt you some more. Even the nuke of learning to love someone else just encourages it. Suddenly you're overwhelmed, as it drags out all the dirty laundry. You compare, you contrast, you find all those tiny flaws and quirks that once seemed so unique.
And you have to realize that it's only as unique as love. A love that doesn't die is more common than those roaches. And every single time you stumble over it, it seems as shiny and different as the last time. Impossibility we fool ourselves into believing.
Love is the most persistent thing you can find. Mounties may always catch their man, energizer batteries may keep on going and going.....
But far beyond all of that, there will be love. Then, now, and always. Such is the curse of feeling in the first place.
Y'all know the drill. Comments can be e-mailed to Norcumi@backtick.net, Instant Messaged to the same address, or left in the Forum.
Back up, will ya? Back to the Rantings Page