The Desirability of Love

Addictive to love. Being in love can be euphoric, comparable to the endorphin released feel-good experience of a runner’s high. Neuroscientists for instance suggest with such feel -good activities dopamine is released to mediate the pleasure of this experience. You and your brain become suitably rewired by dopamine as it stimulates you to continue to seek out this pleasurable activity in an effort to maintain this state. In other words, you become addicted to love.
Love is a desirable state. Søren Kierkegaard the father of existentialism suggested that people accessed their best selves in a loving, committed relationship (Big Link accessed 01.04.17). Love is therefore to be desired and not just a grand idea as Rizzolo explained her book Splendor from Ashes. However, falling in love after a painful experience is hard. While to find the courage to love again is admirable – to let one’s guard down like this – can be likened to the irresponsible actions of a recovering addict who potentially compromises his/her hard work towards sobriety by venturing into spaces that need to be off limits after recovery.
Confronted with the possibility of loving again conjures up past hurts for some. But then love is a high-risk investment, the risks are high but so too are the possibilities for reaping rich dividends. Should one become imprisoned within protective impenetrable walls of one’s one own making one would not be able to draw down on the potential high yields; the outcomes of investing in love.
The truth of Lived Experience. The respected psychologist Kiekergard also said truth is not about discovering objective facts independent of lived experiences. You may be the possessor of objective facts but these facts may rob one of the beauty of one’s own subjective experiences. The truth- your truth – is found in how you allow yourself relate to your experiences (Big Link accessed 01.04.17).
Love is scary. Contemplating the exposure of oneself to love and the involved raw emotions once more is scary. However, paradoxically I have found that wholeness comes to those who have the courage to allow themselves to be vulnerable again. Moreover, loving seems to be a natural human motivation; we seem to be driven by innate desire to love again and beloved. Psychologist Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory supports this idea and recognizes a clear relationship between love and self esteem. The push towards love then is an indicator of increased self esteem and the acquisition of the psychological freedom to grow.
Ambivalent about love. As one who had loved before I became cautious to the point of being ambivalent in my feelings towards loving again. When I decided I was ready for love again I wanted this person to be my intellectual equal, share my belief system and of course love me to pieces. These poems reflect the fear and inner transactions as I wrestled with fears that accompanied this resolution. (The names accompanying each poem are merely textual devices)

Love is scary. While contemplating the exposure of oneself to love and involved raw emotions, once more is scary, paradoxically I have found that wholeness comes to those who have the courage to allow themselves to be vulnerable again. Moreover, loving seems to be a natural human motivation/drive; we seem to be driven by innate desire to love again and beloved. Psychologist Maslow hierarchy of needs theory supports this idea and recognizes a clear relationship between love and esteem. The push towards love then is an indicator of increased self esteem and the acquisition of the psychological freedom to grow.

Ambivalent about love
As one who had loved before I became cautious to the point of being ambivalent in my feelings towards loving again. When I decided I was ready for love again I wanted this person to be my intellectual equal, share my belief system and of course love me to pieces. These poems reflect the inner transactions as I wrestled with fears that accompanied this resolution. (The names are merely textual devices)
To Russell
I enjoyed making you coffee
And watching you take your tea
I wanted to cook you dinner
But you were hesitant
To let it be
I wanted no intellectual
I simply wanted you
But you misread my benign teasing
And drove a wedge between
That which could have been

To Larry
Your love
Makes me feel ethereal
Feminine and flirty
And ecstatic and sexy and…
I see it in your eyes
The love you speak about
And my heart leaps within
My woman’s breast in response
I wish for all things,
On the strength of the promise
I see in your eyes
And God knows I want to respond
But I am afraid to love you
For love is so fleeting
Temporary, painful, stifling
And oh so disappointing
My love when it comes will be genuine
And bounded in the truth of my being
Is your truth and your love
Rooted in the real truth, in God’s truth?
Is your love expendable, transient
Exploitative, harsh and unmusical?
Or is it gentle, soft, freeing, selfless,
Durable and, kissable like God’s love?

To Glen
Before the Night Comes
A tentative hope nagged at the hemline of my heart
Like a stranger in midst of a gathering darkness
And I grope among the dead fetuses
To find my way before the night comes
And as so many times before
Hope ignites and dusts distant dreams
From the cobwebs of disenchantment
And statistical mismanagement
Dreams of love and rightness once more
Are redeemed from well worn pages
Are redefined by the new and the strange
And are placed now within my range
Oh but I have been here before
Where smiles become engulfed by familiar cynicism
Doomed to be stillborn
In the interstices of our beliefs
And my belief is me,
And his belief is him,
And though I want mine to be his
Oh, he vows it will never be
But I feel like I’ve met a kindred soul
Must this thing so beautiful and so delicate
Be doomed at its very dawning?
I know I must walk away but I don’t want to