Why is the date significant? As Middle East tensions escalated, as the city I call home, Dubai, saw a first - missiles being intercepted, debris falling and causing injuries and damage, I felt anxious. I have never felt anxious in this city. Not for such a reason. I appreciate that I am safe, but hearing fighter jets all morning, reading government alerts at midnight, and seeing small puffs of smoke in another cloudless sky makes you reflect. What is safety? How can the decisions of two men make millions feel anxious? The consequences of their actions will in fact trigger a wider butterfly effect. Or I want to say falcon effect.
But I am no political, geopolitical nor security analyst. I am just a lay woman, who watched season 4 of Bridgerton yesterday. I want to go on a date. I am not yet fully ready, I think getting out of a long relationship is hard. And there is no singular point post which I will be ready, so I want to try. One date.
Probably in April. March is already upon us, and it would be presumptuous of me to think that just because I am finally almost-ready, I will find someone soon? I still have the issue of putting myself out there. And then, lo and behold, be judged, swiped left and right on.
Love is so strange. But instead of looking at it as a big word or a complex emotion, I am going to slice it like a pie. If I see from my perspective, love is someone being there for me. My lows. My highs; someone proud of my highs. My lows, someone who really wants to be a part of my life, my whole life. Not one version of me. But me. Because the truth is, I don’t myself know how many versions I have. I am still evolving.
For those of you who believe it is important to first understand yourself before finding love, I agree with you. But humans will evolve and change and adapt and learn and unlearn and grow and become stupider or become smarter. And this is not even touching on the physical changes.
So, either your partner loves all of you, or you will end up masking a lot of your versions and show only the one version they do love of you. Masking is soul-sucking. Time-consuming. You were born and you were put on this planet to be yourself. To be one whole person. To be all the versions of yourself. So, you do a great injustice to yourself and to all your ancestors. The ones that carried your dust and stars. And probably dreamt of a version of you, from another time and space.
To own all of you is love. For you and probably for one other soul. Or perhaps, you have more than one soul mate?
Love is giving. I recall early on in my marriage; I was so calculative. I would give only if I truly believed he would also do the same. Dishes? Sure, but he would have had to do it as well. A movie he liked? Sure, but I would also need him to come watch a movie I liked. I never gave freely. The calculation consumed me. I lost track, and I was constantly unhappy. Was I receiving fairly? But it did not matter. I was not giving because of love. It felt like a duty. But to give for giving's sake is love.
Love is physical familiarity. To want to touch, to want to comfort, to want to hold his hand, to want to hold the small of her back, to touch your feet to his in bed. Attraction is gorgeous. But touch? To know that there is one whole other person in this big bad beautiful world who will always hold your hand, no matter what, that is love.
Love is endless conversations. Love is not being able to wait to share that little thing with your partner. You don’t need grand topics. You need to want to talk, while probably creating topics out of thin air. You need to be able to create new memories, so you are not always reminiscing about old memories. I used to find it strange, as a small child, to hear the phrase, “marry your best friend”. But as a 38-year-old, I concur.
Love is want. To want to kiss. To want to pull their hair. To want to travel together. And to want to go back home together. To want to create a life together.
The last couple of flights I took, I really wanted to hold my neighbor’s hands. I am an extremely nervous flyer. And I now just breathe hard. But I would have loved to have someone whose hand I squeezed. Someone who soothed me during turbulence. Not because I can’t go through it alone, but this is why it is a want. We don’t need a hand. We want a hand. We are capable of doing most things by ourselves. But the want to do it with another person is what we are likely built for. Well, most of us, some of us genuinely do better alone and that’s beautiful and that is okay.
Love is to feel safe. Love is to give attention to the small details. Love is to remember what matters to them. Love is sacrifice. Love is to be there for them even when you are tired. Love is dressing up and going on a date with them. Love is listening.
I am probably exaggerating, since the lack of love makes you foggy. But I am greedy. I want for me to have love.