What is love?

I find myself frequently asking this question: perplexed time and time again, as to the meaning of that elusive state which conquers one, and one is conquered by.

But I want my freedom.

Over and over. Again and again. It’s always the same story, I will not sacrifice for anyone. Not even love.

So what is love? Is there such a thing? And what I mean is that true love, which is forever after, yet always exciting, stimulating and wrought in passion. That is what I seek. That thing that does not exist. Not in our world.

Can I be me? Can I just be me, in the face of love?

Can I claim and act upon my freedom and love without constraint?

Can I break and go against myself? Yield and surrender, only to resist and go against, and still have that, those most coveted things, freedom and love?

Or is it so, that the things we most desire in life are, and always will be, inherently different?

Mutually exclusive and light-years apart.

There can be no freedom in love, and true love has no place in freedom. Will these, our most coveted aspirations, always go against one another?

I find it funny how my thoughts and experimental ideas have manifested. Life, the universe, surely does have a sense of humor. Such an ironic twist of fate could only be expected from the great plays of Shakespeare. Yet here am I, and here is my life, and there—quite unexpectedly—is my life’s greatest irony. And I am humbled.

Oh, how I desired the freedom to love without restriction. To love as many as I wanted. To be with as many as I wanted. I desired ultimate freedom in love. But somehow, somewhere, at a point that I have yet not determined it backfired.

Is it not funny that in freedom, I could not love freely?

I abandoned those whom I loved the most. I could not freely love the masses and him at the same time. So I said goodbye.

And I spent months pondering. Excruciating nights of pondering, philosophizing, talking to myself and others just crying.

Is it possible to be romantically involved with more than one at a time?

As humans, are we capable of such freedom?

What is freedom anyway? I don’t know.

Yet irony would have it that my experimental thoughts manifested, and who better to teach me the lesson than the one I had most loved, the one I had first abandoned?

And when I saw him and saw him love another, while loving me at the same time, I was perplexed. Though, he personified my musings, and did this that I had been craving. I was perplexed. Uncomfortable. I am one of the masses now. And I feel insecure, sad and insignificant.

My theories of freedom and love as two compatible forces fell.

I am not free when I desire him to be mine. I am not free in love. I am not free when I begin to resent freedom.

So, is it possible to be romantically involved with many simultaneously?

My heart says no. My mind says yes, my ego desires ultimate freedom.

My heart however, in its vulnerability, is afraid. It fears hurt, it fears betrayal, it is fearful that it does not deserve the greatest love.

My heart wants to come first. My heart desires those warm, cozy feelings of safety that only a lack of “freedom” can bring.

And I understand.

My demands were too many.

Though we love many, in romantic love we must be few.

Otherwise, conflicts arise. For one always has a tighter grip on the lover’s heart. One, will have the brightest eyes. One, the most passionate embrace. Not the many. This is the order. I think . . .

In romance we are not equal. There will always be the greatest.

Though we all are great.

And I cannot bear to be anything but the greatest.

So now, what do I do?

How do I navigate my desire? Can I have both the ultimate love and freedom? Or must I choose, or submit my heart to pain—as the ultimate price of freedom?

Must I sacrifice?

To be free, I must allow your freedom. And your freedom pains me when it leads you away from me. Your freedom robs me of my cherished love.

Oh, it is all so confusing.

Or could it be that it is all in my mind?

And that I turn from love in quest for freedom because of fear?

Fear of pain.

Fear of betrayal.

Fear of you discovering that in the end, I just was not good enough?

Hannah is a writer, a seeker and an up and coming bestseller. She knows that the grass is greener on both sides, that the light is also the dark and that joy and pain are the same things. It’s hard to be a human, but still it’s immensely beautiful. And though she may go round and round chasing an imaginary tail, somewhere is some reality, she gets.

 

 

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Editor: Thaddeus Haas

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