My dad tells this story… When he first found out that my mom was pregnant with me, he was scared. He loved my older brother so much and was worried that he wouldn’t be able to love me the same way. But when I came out in all my perfect glory (Ha! I was blue), he says that he felt like that scene in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” when the Grinch’s heart grows and grows. He says he physically felt his heart expand. He didn’t have to sacrifice any of the love for my brother in order to make room for me. But his capacity for love just grew.
Bo and I were talking recently about love. When she first started falling in love with P, she says it taught her that she had never really loved K (her high school boyfriend). And now that she and P have broken up, she is afraid that she won’t be able to find that same connection with someone else.
Bo and I disagree on the subject of love. As far as my high school boyfriend goes, I have loved others more since, but to me that doesn’t discredit what I had with him. The way I see it, I loved him as much as I knew how at the time. And breaking up with him and moving on doesn’t mean I don’t still love him. I do, but in a drastically different way. My love for my high school boyfriend is something along the lines of thank-you-so-much-for-showing-me-kindness-and-love-and-being-there-for-me-when-I-needed-someone.
Bo is a one-at-a-time kind of gal, but I love love so much that I drown myself in it, in all different kinds of it. I have numerous best friends… and while I realize calling them all “best” kind of kills the point of the word, they are all best for something. One for grumbling about my past and laughing about PQ losers, one for going out and dancing all night, one for hanging out in PJ’s and cooking, one for crying to.
And that’s how I am with guys, too, I suppose. And, by extension, love. There’s my “half boyfriend,” who gives me diversity of opinion and conversation and lots of books, but without any of the emotional attachment or stress that comes with a relationship. There’s the hopelessly impossible guy that I can’t let go of who knows all my secrets because he’s the only one who ever bothered to ask. There’s the best friend turned crush turned sadly distant memory who calls me things like “pretentious.” And then there are the guys I date whom, in a way, I love too.
You know how the eskimos have a bajillion different words for snow? Well I think that there should be more words for love. Four letters can’t possibly begin to encompass the meaning of such a complex term. There are so many different genres: family love, love of friends, love-hate complexity, romantic love, romantic lust, love for inanimate objects… how can loving my mascara be the same as loving my mother? Or a boyfriend?
And why should there be a limit? I’m definitely not advocating polyamorous relationships, but maybe I am advocating polyamory… It’s a stretch, but still. Why limit ourselves or our capabilities? Why not allow ourselves to love those we once loved, but learn to love again and in new, more profound ways?
I wrote this song once, my senior year of high school about my high school boyfriend, post-break up:
“This brand new love,
Like nothing I’ve felt before,
Knowing with all the crap that we’ve been through,
I’d still always be there for you.
And yes, I know it’s not the same
And I don’t still think of you that way…”
I think it still holds true.
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