some times I wonder…

… if my abysmal love life and current lack of one isn’t penance for being such a shitty girl friend in the past. I think back on my past relationships and how easily they were discarded over the most trivial matters. Matters now that seem hardly important. Pride will do that, create a sense of over importance and next thing you know a perfectly good relationship is tossed to the wayside.

I thought as I aged I got a better perspective on things on that nature, love. The only thing I’ve learned over time about love is that I have no idea about love at all.

Dysfunctional childhoods often breed such uncertainty in matters of the heart. You can grow up feeling that you are undeserving a love and go about relationships set on self destruct mode. Abused children grow up to be adults that question with suspicion anything good that happens in their lives, holding their breath waiting for the ax to fall. The result is a sort of self fulfilling prophesy that destroys every heart we get entangled with.

Today’s homily was about love. God commands us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Father talked about romantic love and the expectancy we place on our partner to make us feel loved… to make us feel good. “He makes me feel good, he makes me happy.” This is not love. This is how another person is used to make us feel better about ourselves. When the euphoric honeymoon phase has passed we assume we are no longer in love or they no longer love us because we stopped feeling happy.

I couldn’t help but think of one person in particular the entire time. I thought about how we struggled our last year together and how hard it seemed to make things work. But mostly I thought how easily I had given up as soon as the feeling was gone and I know I was in the wrong.