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norwegianfriedokra · 4 years

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Introspection...in fact another’s assignment

Today's topic is a bit strong, it's a bit impactful, it's personal. It's something I've done a ton of thinking about. It's about the meaning of love. Oh I know what you're thinking. What's with the cheesy catch phrases, seriously Rachael...but one thing I know. One thing I can impart, is my own thoughts and feelings in this world. If my thoughts, feelings and the meaning I find can do anything for anyone else. Even if it means to clear up misconceptions that I created or ones others have in their own life...it's worth it. Communication, at least the attempt of which, is of utmost importance. Without it are you showing that you care, that you love, others?

Here in Germany, a strong cultural trait that I've picked up, is that people have a tendency to withhold information. By that I mean keeping certain things, even basic information that we, in the states, would find odd. Where you were born, or what you studied in college, telling someone you just met that information isn't necessary. Being vague about it is totally acceptable and common practice. Sharing such information comes after the first couple of times you meet someone. Perhaps this is an incorrect interpretation, but as I have experienced it, it seems to hold true.

However once you get to know someone the real intensity starts. You see, once the wall breaks down it gets real. The nature of relationships of any kind here, once they really begin, it's hard to truly explain. Of course, this could just be the people I knew in the states. The relationships I have with my friends and family in the states. It could also just be me. I beg of my readers today to hold some compassion and withhold judgement.

I always felt like there was a wall. You can become friends with people in the states, but that wall that keeps your soul safe is always up. There are few people I have ever really felt like that wall broke with. There are definitely people who have seen my own intensity and emotional reactions. To try to really communicate what I mean I will describe a couple of extreme situations in my life and what happened.

One that springs to mind is when my dog died. After college I got a dog, and I named her Iza. I could easily say that I got this dog to fill a void. Some people have children, I got a dog. You see, right after college life got wicked hard for me. My family broke, my parents split right before my last term of college and I barely graduated. For the first year or so I was dating someone, and when that ended I jumped from home to home. When a potentially more long term solution came up to move in with some friends, somewhere around then, I got a dog.

I had dreams to take this dog with me and hike the Appalachian Trail. I wanted it to be my companion, a true second in my life. Unfortunately within 4 or 5 months I got an injury during a soccer game. During a time when I needed to focus on training this new addition in my life, I couldn't. I couldn't walk, I was on crutches for three weeks. Afterwards I still needed lots of time to recover correctly, but this dog needed to be cared for too. I quickly realized that if I wasn't able to take care of myself, I couldn't take care of this dog. But nevertheless I recovered, I was able to walk and then run again. Then I moved into this new home, finally I found a chance for consistency and rhythm. I think it was within a week of moving into this new home my dog was hit by a car. It was an unfortunate accident that directly coincided with the breakup of my then boyfriend. Literally, my boyfriend and I were breaking up when it happened. Then I took my dog to the vet, only to learn that she would need to have a leg amputated. There was a surgery option but it was too expensive. I had also grown up that spending money like that on pets wasn't really an option. I made, probably, one of the worst decisions of my life. I decided to get my pet put down.

I did my best to be realistic about it. I was barely able to take care of myself at that time. I couldn't pay for the surgery even to have her leg amputated, I would need to take out a loan to manage it. Even after that I would be living with roommates whom I couldn't imagine what an impact it would have had on them. So much of my decision was based on things that now, when I look back, I know I could have managed in some fashion. But emotionally where I was (and by no means do I mean due to the breakup), and financially, I felt totally incapable of handling the situation.

All the while my now ex-boyfriend stayed by my side trying to just be there. I couldn't even be in the room when she was put down. I was so consumed with guilt at my decision, my selfish decision, I couldn't look her in the eyes. I can't help thinking about this time and not cry, the sadness still consumes me at times. When we got back to the house I was now living in I raged. I grabbed some glassware I owned and smashed it against the garage wall outside. I searched desperately for something to help me process this.

What I know now is that I wasn't just processing the death of my dog. This evening was the culmination of all the loss I had suffered in the past year. That past year my family had totally broken apart. My father was homeless. I had ended three relationships, two of which were with men whom I deeply respected and had deep attachments to as friends for years. Both of those breakups, even though the physical relationships were short, had immense meaning to me. I had graduated college to find myself in the middle of the burgeoning economic crisis. Attempting to find work that gave my education meaning was meaningless, or at least seemed so in the midst of everything else going on in my life. I lived paycheck to paycheck, but I kept moving. I planned for the future. I got a dog, I bought tickets to visit my friend Jens in Germany. And then, like pulling a tooth with a slammed door, I crashed.

Yes, I said the point of this entry is the meaning of love. Well, in times like this, love is what can pick you up. Love can support you. It can make you feel cared for so that despite when you feel lost and alone you realize you're not. At this point in my life I felt concern and care from my ex-boyfriend and best friend who stayed with me throughout the night. But the pain I felt, the loss.

I had always been one to think of sadness as a beautiful emotion. Not because I was always depressed, but because crying and sadness was a reaction to beautiful things. That to feel sadness was to evoke and emote your empathy. It's not always so, I know that, but in terms of the loss of loved ones, or when enduring difficult situations, it was an acceptable emotion. As I love to write, it was something I always embraced as I felt it helped me to better access my inner poet.

This rage I felt, at this time, I had never felt something so intense. I had never felt the desire to break things. Now, with the sun setting behind the tall buildings here in Offenbach I find myself melancholy in my thoughts. A heaviness on my heart as I recollect my first dog. The love and joy I had found in Iza, it's something I won't get back. It had an innocence to it, one that denied all the hardships that were surrounding me. I could giggle and simply find myself with her. I could be angry but joyful, happy and comforted.

And what's the point, you ask again? Love is something you experience. It's entirely personal. Without communicating it others will have no knowledge of it. My love of my dog, it was something I experienced. It is a memory, and something that changed me. I chose to love my dog, and I was the one who was crushed by the circumstances of her death. You chose to love others, but to expect them to love you back...you can't rely on that.

With pets, as they communicate very differently, you can only imagine that they love you back. That they also care for you in that way. Their devotion and need, it implies such feelings. Perhaps they do, in fact, feel that way. But my loss in this instance was entirely of my own creation. I had chosen to love my dog. It created meaning in my life, and filled a void I thought I had.

Aww shit, am I even expressing this right? The meaning of love is entirely dependent on whom is loved and who does the loving. Everyone's love is different, expressed differently, and exists differently. No two people love each other the same. When love can't be communicated well, how will the other actually know they're loved? Is faith, in this instance, enough? The meaning in love, in my mind, isn't found. If you can't find a way to reach the other person, to communicate your love, then will it exist for them?

I think that's where most mistrust, and distance between people, comes from. At some point people can't communicate their love to each other anymore. I know it's not only that, but I really feel that because love in every situation is different, that unless it is truly understood by the other person/being, without being understood has it existed? At that point it's a one-sided love.

And as love is also different in all situations, it's also fluctuating. Like the seasons and tides it changes. Strong and bold, or like a whisper, it flutters through our lives on butterfly wings. Sadness then being they symbol that once one did love, once, perhaps, one found love.

Ok, my melancholy sunset and I are going to go drink some tea and take a nap. These meanderings of meaning, I hope in some way that they reached you, my dear readers. I never profess to know anything, only to impart and share in this complicated world. Another jenga piece when you'd rather be playing beer pong.

#drivel #melancholyevening #teaonafullstomach

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