Tuesday, 18 June 2013

Love and passion. A ramble.


I read the vaccuous headlines so I deserve the eyeball strain. But since when did "passionate" become a synonym for "argue all the time", especially when you know it's nothing to do with passion and everything to do with YOU SHOULDN'T BE TOGETHER? Passion seems to have been accepted as a good excuse for dysfunction when it comes to relationships. Can't those of us who live together on a pretty even keel be passionate? I 'd chase Mr Y à la Benny Hill all day long if he didn't have to go to work. Because we don't fight, there's not passion? 

I've read that back. What the heck am I talking about? Passion has been used as a flattering cover to excuse excessive shitdickery since time immemorial in both life and fiction. Look at that bastard Heathcliff. People swoon over him left, right, and centre when the fact is the character is an EPIC ballbag (all right, I'm not surprised he turned out to be fucked up considering his childhood, but come on! Really? Romantic hero? Broody spiteful ball sac, more like) And Cathy wasn't any better. I spent much of the last time I read Wuthering Heights muttering crossly to myself about the bloody idiot behaviour of two people who were more aberrantly dependent on the memory of each other than in love. Literature is full of fools who regret their massive arsery later, but indulge themselves in it without a second thought. Is that the human condition? It is, isn't it? We baste ourselves in our stupid, pigeon-eyed reactions and wonder why things turn to excrement. We think the highs and lows of love are what make it special, what make it count. If it's not turbulent, it's not worth it. 

What utter bollocks.

Love, true love, whatever you want to call it, is about a bond. A connection that isn't tenuous, but is as solid as a double decker bus. I only have to look at Mr Y and I feel an intensity that I can’t verbalise. He can be on the other side of a packed bar and I'll still feel it. He could be on the other side of the ocean and I'd still feel it. Time and distance don't change it, it just is. It's not about that old Buddhist bugbear, attachment - which is why I fear many people keep their disintegrating relationships alive. I can understand it. There have been times in our relationship - which is nearly 21 years old - when I've felt utterly lost, but you keep on keeping on, y'know? You work through the hard times and learn your lessons and a little more about each other, not to mention yourself. It doesn't mean yelling and screaming the same old petty abuses at each other ad infinitum, picking the scabs, getting nowhere, then indulging in some hot monkey sex that's really an excuse not to take a good hard look at yourselves. That's not love. That's demented. Like Albert Einstein once said "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". Quite so, old boy - and he knew a thing or two about the old love squeezings ... wait, I’ve gone wrong and we’ve ended up back with Benny Hill. 

I don't know if love can last a life time. How would I know? I've not finished mine yet (touch wood). I hope it does though, because frankly I lucked out like a motherlicker the day I met Mr Y. What I'm saying is don't let them fool you. You don’t lack passion because you’re not haranguing each other all the time. It's not boring because you're not humping each other like dogs on heat every five minutes. If you're not taking lumps out of each other, it doesn't mean you're not in love. The perma-tanned airheads (of both sexes) who parade their "passionate" relationships up and down the side bars of tabloid websites aren't good examples. Passion does not trump good behaviour. If you love someone, you behave well towards them (most of the time, but because they love you it's okay when you sometimes don't) Stop and smell the roses. If it's not making you happy, and I mean long term happy, not "he didn't put the loo seat down and the toilet has that green mist again, I'm leaving" term happy, dump that shit and run. Life's too fucking short. 


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