There’s a terrific fear that acts as the eulogy to a deceased relationship. It’s the only emotion that exists when I look upon a face printed with tear tracks, a body shaking with anxiety, and realize that I care for this person as much as I would a passerby. I feel discomfort, and I desire his immediate departure. In fact, I have less sympathy for this individual’s pain than for a passerby—the former has been explored and found wanting, whereas the latter harbors potential. The mirror in which I saw a better version of myself now contains an unfamiliar figure. At some point, one or both of us changed, and our relationship couldn’t keep pace. This is when I wonder if love exists as the fixed absolute that we perceive.
Many people will liken or even equate love with the concept of God, both viewed as absolutes that are essential to our existence. In terms of understanding love, I prefer to employ Voltaire’s reasoning: “If God didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” Love is a beautiful concept but an inconsistent practice. Its greatest value is observed in the weight that we grant it. There is a human need not only to feel close to one another but also to feel that there is something sacred in this attachment. We hope to overcome the bounds of our mortality by discovering connections that extend past all trials, even that of the grave. In fact, our encounters with grief are predominantly attempts to reconcile our worldviews with the reality of loss—as we lose someone to the next world, we struggle not to lose our love for them as well, for to do so would mean that we have lost our anchor.
I’ve seen too much of love distorted to believe it incorruptible, even when both parties are committed to the objective of sustaining it. But I don’t reject its importance. Love is crucial, flawed though it may be. I believe that every day we break our own hearts. And we mend them. And in this way, we grow stronger. We allow ourselves to be so engaged with the world that our hearts become calloused bones, strengthened by their continual breaking and healing. This constant state of fluctuation is how we know that we’re not only alive but also flourishing. We contrast the heartbreak with the heartache, the flutter with the rush of exhilaration that flushes our cheeks, and we appreciate all of them the better for this process.
In some instances, however, we have to remove ourselves from relationships that threaten this cycle of growth. When a relationship has grown vicious and base, with one or both parties seeking to harm the other in their interactions, the assault against the heart is too frequent and forceful to allow the bone time to heal. The successive breaks prove more harmful than helpful, and some distance from the assailant is necessary. In this way there remains the potential for growth within the relationship, given some time and distance.
I’m tempted to claim that it is an act of mercy to allow the death of a detached relationship. Though occasional neutrality within a relationship can heighten experiences of feeling, a truly detached relationship endangers the heart: the structure grows hollow and unsteady from want of attention. And by fixating upon a relationship destined to fail, we can only remind ourselves of the inconsistency of love—a theory that may frighten us away from future relationships.
Yet, I can’t encourage the severance of such a relationship. If there is courage within that action, then I am a coward. I look at my significant other who has become simply an “other,” and despite the disharmony that his presence creates, I cannot cut myself from the decaying relationship. I cannot break the mirror, however distorted the reflection it casts. Is this contradictory state the result of my desire to create an absolute for myself, however fragile? Perhaps the ideal of love, this castle in the air, is a more substantial structure than the resignation of oneself to reality, our earthly home: the former’s ethereal substance can’t be destroyed without the assent of the dreamer, while the latter’s concrete destruction is as inevitable as its construction. I lecture against maintaining absolutes, yet I appear to contradict my statements in grasping firmly to a relationship that bears false witness to love.
Still, I answer that love isn’t an absolute. Simply to dismiss love for its status as a flawed concept, however, is to create an opposing, equally flawed absolute of self-preservation.
Love is a crucial stage within a cycle of contradictory concepts—including but not limited to detachment, self-discovery, and confusion—that is necessary for our existence. We set standards that undergo constant changes to most accurately reflect our environments. Today I act in self-preservation, while tomorrow I will roll up my sleeves and commit myself to the labor of love. In both instances, I am not acting in accordance with a compelling concept that orders but does not define my life. To treat either love or the rejection of it as an absolute would be an oversimplification that precludes us from appreciating life in all of its nuances.
Featured Image by Grace Chung
