the venerable vulnerable

Tonight Venerable Robina touched briefly upon something I have been struggling intensely with. The idea of love vs. attachment.

I have loads and loads of attachment (as most of us around here do). I’m attached to my television and vehicle and computer and phone and computer games and the internet and my favorite foods and to possessions that I don’t even remember I have until I open the boxes at the back of the closet. All these things I look at and say, gosh, I’m not sure I could do without that…

I attach very intensely to people. Very intensely. It feels reckless and volatile. Probably because it is. I extend myself and my hopes and my notions so far that it leaves little room for reality. For likelihood, even. I set myself up for heartbreak.

I attempted to ask a question, or perhaps just make a comment, but did such a poor job formulating it that Robina became agitated with me (as she does). The whole thing – which seems as though it should be a simple notion – confuses me so that I can’t even express a coherent thought.
She construed my words much differently than I intended them, and deduced that I have a hard time feeling love for others. Which is not the case.
Love, as she defined it, is having the thought “may you be happy.” Instead, she said, we commonly use love as “may you be happy as long as you make me happy.” I don’t struggle terribly with this.
Everyone that I have ever loved, in any capacity, I still love. I don’t care if they wrong me or hurt me or betray me or cause me feel to jealous or angry. No matter what they have done to me – and people have hurt me terribly – I still wish them well. And, if presented with the opportunity, I would do (and presently do) whatever I can to assist in their happiness.
I think of Lisa, my first love, and how viciously she devastated me. I feel that her actions were cruel and unwarranted. They wounded me at such a tumultuous time in my life that I almost gave up on life itself. I was jealous of her life-to-be with the man she loved, and it was unbearable to look at them.
But I truly, deeply, wished for her happiness. She deserved her happiness and I would never have done anything to impede or derail it.
I do not have difficulty feeling love for people who have hurt me.
I do not even have difficulty feeling genuine love for people who just plain don’t want me.
Even if what will make them happy is *not being with me*… and I feel as though I might just die if they will not be with me… I genuinely want them to be happy.

If it makes them happy, I want them to be without me. Sometimes I have had to remove myself to make this happen, all the while feeling as though it might kill me. If forced to choose between my own happiness and the happiness of someone I love, I would choose theirs every time.

So, what then is my struggle?
I want to be happy too.

It feels as though attachment is necessary to love.
Being “in love” with someone, in my mind, means needing them. It means wanting them. Desiring them. Feeling as though you can’t live without them and your life would just not be as fulfilling if you were to lose them.
It is all achingly, illogically, tragically Bohemian – this I know. I have an attachment to that manner of thought as well, but that’s another matter!

If I feel that all this is a key component of love, I guess the next logical step is to define what it means to me to “have” someone.
Which is a good question. We all know, logically, that we can never "possess" someone. They are not ours, just like we are not theirs.
Having, I suppose, is a commitment. A contract of sorts. Having them is having their promise.

Though Robina didn’t answer my question at all, she set me off on thinking about my attachment – what my attachment really is.
I began to follow the train of thought, scribbling furiously in my notebook as others asked more coherent questions.

My thoughts about “what love is” are a reflection of what *I* want. What I desire.
I desire to be desired.
I want to be wanted.
I want my partner to feel as though they need me, and my partnership.

I do not want them to feel as though they can’t live without me, as that would be dangerous to them (should I expire first or our relationship end).

But I, to quote Cheap Trick, want you to want me.
Why? What does it give me?
Security.
If you need me and want me, then surely you won’t leave me.
If you don't leave me, I will be safe.
If you need me, I will feel useful.
If I feel useful, I will feel good about my life.
If you want me, I will feel attractive.
If you want me, others will see how loved I am.

If you need me then I have worth.
I am not worthless.

If you know you will be fine in either case, you might not put up with me. You might not be willing to work as hard on “us.” You might just get bored and wander off to see what else is out there.
If you are not attached me, you might not stay very long.

If you are not attached me, you do not really want me.

If you love me, you might let me go when you think it’s better for me. (and you might be right)
If you are not enlightened, you might not know what is better for me. Or you might let me go out of self-deprecation.
I might not (very likely not, at the moment) know what is better for me.

These words are all difficult to write.

It is even more difficult to think that wanting someone to want me is not wanting someone to be happy... No matter how good I think I would be for/with them. Wanting to force my will upon someone because it will reassure me about myself and somehow tidy up my past... is not what is best for that person.
And therefore....
it is not love.

My attachment is not love.

Because it is intense and romantic and dramatic and filled with notions of forever and giving and protection and damsels in distress and knights in shining armour I think that it is love.

But it is a small abused child wanting comfort and wanting security.
It is laziness, wanting easy approval from without instead of difficult approval from within.
It is a reflection of someone who has witnessed precious little love, but copious amounts of attachment.
It is lies that I did not even know were lies.
Lies that I cannot be blamed for.

There is no blame here, just light where there once was dark.

The deeper I go into the darkness, the more I yearn for the light.