My early lessons in love were always administered under the circumstances of loss, the depth of which correlated to the value (sentimental or monetary) of the missing entity in question. Anything that can be loved or owned can be lost. As a child, I was always losing replaceable, trivial things--sweaters, toys, teeth. My mother was often losing immaterial things, like her patience..
On many occasions, an item has gone missing from my life. And even years after, I’d still stop to ponder, over something mundane like washing the dishes, wherever did it end up, say, that gold hoop earring that slipped off in the middle of the street that day? What ever becomes of a loved thing lost?
How pleasant it would be, were it possible, to receive postcards …show more content…
I was never “secure” in regards to love. I seemed to always be pouring my heart into things that could not love me back, or, if they did, it was always for very short spans of time. And so for me, love was never associated with eternity. The two seemed almost mutually exclusive.
Knowing this, it can be hard to tell if I am just reckless with my affection. But the impermanence of love has led me to open my heart in seasons, to embrace the cycle of loving, losing, and renewing. My heart not unlike the Phoenix, my devotion not unlike the flames.
And so the things I watered with my adoration were always fleeting, wild things. Sometimes they were boys, but usually, they were cats.
Their eyes would flicker with recognition, looking up at us, a paw suspended in midair, calculating our next move. All that curiosity, that fear: sizing up, trying to place us as we stood before them with our gaping smiles and palms faced outward, cooing. We must have looked monstrous.
In a moment of disassociation I would occasionally hear my words echo back to me: Come, come here, it’s okay. An invitation laced with polite menace. It’s okay.
Many afternoons passed like this, their diamond olive pupils contracting in the sunlight and their fur glistening in it, too. I stood and stared and they stared …show more content…
Every summer, each winter. They were always coming and going, and we were always getting attached. I was always pouring my love into them, naming them and noting their behavioral patterns, and photographing their antics. There will undoubtedly be new cats in the future and they will be just as adored as all the priors. They always come to us, and they will let us love them, and then when ready, they leave.
And it doesn’t make us any less likely to love them. The absence doesn’t make us stingy with our hearts, for ust as the cats come in seasons, so too does my adoration blossom in cycle. After all, anything that can be owned or loved can be lost.
There is no Lost and Found for cats. We will never be able to ascertain their paths after us. We will never find closure in this love. But. For me, it is always an open act, an act without end, a continuous process that teaches me patience and beginning and loss. I have learned to forgive those who trespass against me, learned humbly to keep my affections young and warm.
It is with only the faintest tinge of regret that I can admit I have learnt to conflate love with loss in the process, to see the two as halves of a complete whole. But I invite myself into the void. I welcome the risk! I found that I have always made a home of myself to stray things, to wild things, to things that never promised to love me
On many occasions, an item has gone missing from my life. And even years after, I’d still stop to ponder, over something mundane like washing the dishes, wherever did it end up, say, that gold hoop earring that slipped off in the middle of the street that day? What ever becomes of a loved thing lost?
How pleasant it would be, were it possible, to receive postcards …show more content…
I was never “secure” in regards to love. I seemed to always be pouring my heart into things that could not love me back, or, if they did, it was always for very short spans of time. And so for me, love was never associated with eternity. The two seemed almost mutually exclusive.
Knowing this, it can be hard to tell if I am just reckless with my affection. But the impermanence of love has led me to open my heart in seasons, to embrace the cycle of loving, losing, and renewing. My heart not unlike the Phoenix, my devotion not unlike the flames.
And so the things I watered with my adoration were always fleeting, wild things. Sometimes they were boys, but usually, they were cats.
Their eyes would flicker with recognition, looking up at us, a paw suspended in midair, calculating our next move. All that curiosity, that fear: sizing up, trying to place us as we stood before them with our gaping smiles and palms faced outward, cooing. We must have looked monstrous.
In a moment of disassociation I would occasionally hear my words echo back to me: Come, come here, it’s okay. An invitation laced with polite menace. It’s okay.
Many afternoons passed like this, their diamond olive pupils contracting in the sunlight and their fur glistening in it, too. I stood and stared and they stared …show more content…
Every summer, each winter. They were always coming and going, and we were always getting attached. I was always pouring my love into them, naming them and noting their behavioral patterns, and photographing their antics. There will undoubtedly be new cats in the future and they will be just as adored as all the priors. They always come to us, and they will let us love them, and then when ready, they leave.
And it doesn’t make us any less likely to love them. The absence doesn’t make us stingy with our hearts, for ust as the cats come in seasons, so too does my adoration blossom in cycle. After all, anything that can be owned or loved can be lost.
There is no Lost and Found for cats. We will never be able to ascertain their paths after us. We will never find closure in this love. But. For me, it is always an open act, an act without end, a continuous process that teaches me patience and beginning and loss. I have learned to forgive those who trespass against me, learned humbly to keep my affections young and warm.
It is with only the faintest tinge of regret that I can admit I have learnt to conflate love with loss in the process, to see the two as halves of a complete whole. But I invite myself into the void. I welcome the risk! I found that I have always made a home of myself to stray things, to wild things, to things that never promised to love me