Love is awful, and yet, we love

During a recent conversation, a friend told me that you need to love, you need to be open to love, even if that love leaves you weeping on the floor.

Love, like the Hot Priest said in Fleabag, isn't for the weak, is it? Love hurts. Love makes you cruel. It's awful, he said, while we sat there, realising the Hot Priest was choosing God and not Fleabag. But love is that, isn't? Love makes you so vulnerable that you end up being afraid of it.

And this love doesn't even need to be romantic. I know that we often talk about love in the context of romance, but as someone who rarely feels this kind of love (and then too, wonders if it's just attraction), I've been vulnerable within the context of other kinds of love. I've had to push myself through the absolute fear that I will wake up one day to the absence of a friend, the loss of a loved one, an unexpected goodbye. It's terrifying, but I guess, this fear is something we need to learn to live with if we want to experience the absolute joy that comes with loving and being loved.

This year has been a rather difficult year. I stepped into it all stupidly hopeful, thinking the universe would be kind, given the cards it dealt me in 2023. Being the self-centred idiot I am, I thought everything would fall into place and be perfect; 2024 was my turn to experience all the good things and none of the bad.

How wrong I was. One thing kept following the other. The possibility of a life sans a really good friend. A confusing web of lies and hurt weaved by another. Harsh words that cut into my skin. My own inability to be there for the people I love. My new self and new life not fitting into who I was and what I did a year and a half ago. My refusal to be kinder, more welcoming.

And then there were other moments of grief. Loss, death, the need to let go. Having to open up about difficult moments and be honest and truthful and vulnerable. Not knowing what people will say, not knowing how the wrong words would affect me.

All in all, it was a mostly shit or difficult year. And I'm relieved it's over. And because there's no way I'm learning from past mistakes. I will continue to approach a new year with the kind of optimism that will leave me well and truly screwed soon. But that's a matter for another day, another post.

But here's the thing. This past weekend, I almost cried outside a supermarket because my bags were too heavy and the tuk so far and my legs too achy. I cursed my phone as the alarm rang, reminding me that I had to wake up and make this and that and somehow get my ass out of the door by a certain time and also get back home so I would have enough time to pack and still be able to get some sleep before my flight.

I was tired. I slept with balm on my legs. My dreams were about forgetting things or messing up.

But from Friday to Sunday, I spent most of my time with friends. Different people, different groups. Among them people I've been impatient with, people I've behaved wrongly around, people I've hurt, people I've expected too much from. Among them people I haven't been honest with, people I've withheld information from. And people who have hurt me.

But instead of hurt or guilt or regret or anger or disappointment, our voices were laced with joy, our laugher filling up the room, love settling in every nook and cranny. That there was what friendship brings you when you get over your fears and allow yourself to love and be loved, even if it means being open to getting hurt.

I think what my friend's words about love and hurt made me realise was that we spend too much time thinking about the forever of it all. We want our friends to grow old with us. We want love to last forever. Everything has to be so eternal in this world of fragile things and fleeting moments. But in spending so much time on how things will end, when things will end, we end up closing ourselves to love and joy and happiness and kindness in the present. We let fear consume us, whether it's the fear of getting hurt or the fear of regret or the fear of loss. And ultimately, we miss out on the best things the universe can give us during our short, and often sad, lives because we are just too afraid.

I wasn't this afraid ten years ago. I opened myself to love. I let that love hurt me, leave me an absolute wreck. I think it made me promise myself that I would never let myself go through it all again. And then, a few weeks ago, that friendship almost resurfaced. And when asked if I was okay about it, I thought: It's been ten whole years. It is that friendship, the laughter, the jokes, the conversations that I remember fondly now. The hurt doesn't matter.

None of it matters after a while. The very hurt and pain and guilt and anger and sadness that we hide from seem so insignificant compared to the goodness that can come out of love. That's the beauty of life, isn't it?

And so, as 2024 ends and 2025 begins, my hope is that the new year is one of joy and kindness and letting yourself love and be loved, even if there is a chance that this love leaves you weeping on the floor (because if and when this happens, someone will show up with kind words, a bottle of wine, and a box of tissues - hopefully).