Shake Your Love, I Just Can't Shake Your Love
--"Shake Your Love", Debbie Gibson
Sometimes I think Brandy had the right idea--fall in love young then have one of you die soon after. I know it's a horrible idea to even contemplate, but part of me believes any other trajectory is doomed to failure. In fact, it's been an idea which has been percolating in my head for some years now. Even as far back as 2004 when I first began writing The Carisa Meridian I had the main character ruminating on whether it was better to pine for a girl he knew all of six months or to grow up with her and come to find out their lives were progressing in different directions? Time just kills anything pure and noble about love--that's what I believe sometimes.
Think about it. On one hand you have my friend Brandy, who loved and lost at an early age. She gets an inordinate amount of sympathy for having somebody in her life she cared about deeply. More to the point, she receives praise for keeping the torch burning for someone who's never coming back again. Hell, you can include me among that number. I mean--that's the definition of true love for some; falling in love with somebody at first sight, losing that somebody, and then swearing off loving anybody else. That's true love in its purest form. That fits the bill of any definition of romantic love. People don't get down on her (often) for still pining away for Joshua; it's loyalty at its most reverent.
Yet when I relate to people that I've basically fallen for someone who can and never love me back for some ten years now, all I hear is that I should move on. It reminds me of that one poem I wrote long ago:
The only conclusion I can draw is that I'm looked down upon for the duration of my relationship. Brandy and Joshua, because theirs was a brief period filled with all the highs of falling in love and finding each other's best characteristics, cannot be assaulted because all one ever hears is how wonderful their time together was. Also, by its brevity, their relationship is unassailable because no one is willing to besmirch a love cut short too soon. But they possess no such qualms about a relationship that, because of its length, has seen the trials and tribulations of the rockiest of journeys. Every ship looks pristine a few miles from port, but if you take a look at a ship that has actually been through the roughest of storms it's going to show some wear.
And when that wear inevitably leads to that ship no longer being considered seaworthy, I guess people are well in their rights to call the ship a blemish on the horizon.
I beg to differ though. While I would never dare place what I've been through as being more characteristic of what real love is compared to Brandy, I believe it has its place among valid accounts of what knowing true passion for someone is. I think there is something noble about getting to know someone faults and all without forsaking them. And while we might not be together in the strictest sense of the word, I'd be upset to hear if anyone said I loved her any less simply because we didn't end up getting married or sharing a house together.
We had our time in the sun just like Brandy did and, similar to her as well, the fortunes of fate intervened to put an end to the time. It doesn't mean my heart doesn't ache just as much for those first few years. It doesn't mean my heart doesn't still believe she was the best thing to have ever brightened it up once upon a time. It doesn't mean my heart doesn't still long for her as much as it ever did.
And I know she still loves me to a large degree even though I can't hear it everyday like I used to... just like Brandy knows the same about Joshua.
It's not my fault that the person I gave my heart to ended up living long enough to break it. In the end it doesn't matter whether you spend two years or fifty years with somebody you love. It doesn't matter if you can hear them say they love you back. Hell, it really doesn't matter if you believe they love you less than you love them. All that matters is you love somebody, anybody will all your heart for as long as you can in whatever way you can. Life should be about the love you give and not about the love you get in return.
Brandy still believes in that idea and I'm proud to say so do I.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
Sometimes I think Brandy had the right idea--fall in love young then have one of you die soon after. I know it's a horrible idea to even contemplate, but part of me believes any other trajectory is doomed to failure. In fact, it's been an idea which has been percolating in my head for some years now. Even as far back as 2004 when I first began writing The Carisa Meridian I had the main character ruminating on whether it was better to pine for a girl he knew all of six months or to grow up with her and come to find out their lives were progressing in different directions? Time just kills anything pure and noble about love--that's what I believe sometimes.Think about it. On one hand you have my friend Brandy, who loved and lost at an early age. She gets an inordinate amount of sympathy for having somebody in her life she cared about deeply. More to the point, she receives praise for keeping the torch burning for someone who's never coming back again. Hell, you can include me among that number. I mean--that's the definition of true love for some; falling in love with somebody at first sight, losing that somebody, and then swearing off loving anybody else. That's true love in its purest form. That fits the bill of any definition of romantic love. People don't get down on her (often) for still pining away for Joshua; it's loyalty at its most reverent.
Yet when I relate to people that I've basically fallen for someone who can and never love me back for some ten years now, all I hear is that I should move on. It reminds me of that one poem I wrote long ago:
That I should move on they say
As if I loved her merely then
But not now and never again.
The only conclusion I can draw is that I'm looked down upon for the duration of my relationship. Brandy and Joshua, because theirs was a brief period filled with all the highs of falling in love and finding each other's best characteristics, cannot be assaulted because all one ever hears is how wonderful their time together was. Also, by its brevity, their relationship is unassailable because no one is willing to besmirch a love cut short too soon. But they possess no such qualms about a relationship that, because of its length, has seen the trials and tribulations of the rockiest of journeys. Every ship looks pristine a few miles from port, but if you take a look at a ship that has actually been through the roughest of storms it's going to show some wear.
And when that wear inevitably leads to that ship no longer being considered seaworthy, I guess people are well in their rights to call the ship a blemish on the horizon.
I beg to differ though. While I would never dare place what I've been through as being more characteristic of what real love is compared to Brandy, I believe it has its place among valid accounts of what knowing true passion for someone is. I think there is something noble about getting to know someone faults and all without forsaking them. And while we might not be together in the strictest sense of the word, I'd be upset to hear if anyone said I loved her any less simply because we didn't end up getting married or sharing a house together.
We had our time in the sun just like Brandy did and, similar to her as well, the fortunes of fate intervened to put an end to the time. It doesn't mean my heart doesn't ache just as much for those first few years. It doesn't mean my heart doesn't still believe she was the best thing to have ever brightened it up once upon a time. It doesn't mean my heart doesn't still long for her as much as it ever did.
And I know she still loves me to a large degree even though I can't hear it everyday like I used to... just like Brandy knows the same about Joshua.
It's not my fault that the person I gave my heart to ended up living long enough to break it. In the end it doesn't matter whether you spend two years or fifty years with somebody you love. It doesn't matter if you can hear them say they love you back. Hell, it really doesn't matter if you believe they love you less than you love them. All that matters is you love somebody, anybody will all your heart for as long as you can in whatever way you can. Life should be about the love you give and not about the love you get in return.
Brandy still believes in that idea and I'm proud to say so do I.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
Labels: Brandy, Debbie Gibson, Dedication, Loyalty, obsessiveness, passion
posted by mojo shivers @ 3:51 AM
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