Hopeful Romantic

(It's February 15th and I still love you)

Love: it has enchanted and eluded me my entire life.

I’ll be honest (not that I’m ever much of anything else here, besides sarcastic); lately, I have been giving so much thought to what the word even means.

My spirit guide, Michelle Tanner. Sourced from Pinterest.

I think it’s been prompted by the big move, which we’ve already talked a bit about, but I’ve been coming to the uncomfortable realization that this is the first time in a while I don’t have any excuses not to have it —love, that is— in the romantic sense, with all its bells and whistles.

A few examples of what I mean by “excuses” include but are not limited to:

• “Dating culture,” (read: hookup culture) “at The University of Alabama is so weird”

• “These guys are…..” (fill in the blank —DIY mad-lib— hint: always a negative adjective)

• “I’m not sure who I’m interested in, but I don’t think they’re here, and, well, I’m moving soon anyway” (never mind that “soon” was always a moving target)

Alabama was a convenient, immovable excuse, wasn’t it? I had an important reason to stay there as well as valid ones to resign myself from the idea of love entirely. Without realizing it, I removed myself from that realm of possibility —really— and grew quite comfortable in the cognitive dissonance.

Now, having moved to a city of 8 million people —one of whom, ostensibly, I would really enjoy sustained companionship with— it’s hard to mentally make the leap. Because to get there, I have to leave here.

And after all this nesting! I’ve got throw pillows and everything. —All chopped at the middles, lined up in a perfect row, and trimmed in white ruffled eyelet (in an eclectic way, with funky patterned centers; not a sorority-core one, all white everything —pun sort of intended).

I’ve designed an entire little mental living room, cozy; chock full of jewel tones and mood lighting —burnt orange painted walls, mildly ugly, but warm like butternut squash soup to me. Humble; not too big, but with a cushioned bench seat and a sprawling bay window, somehow showing perpetual drizzle through its panes. (It’s my fantasy, I don’t need to spare any expense or apply sensical weather patterns.)

Funny enough, though, in this imaginary scene I do not have a dining table; cannot picture a bathroom or a bed. It’s peaceful and safe, but empty besides me, and the floorplan to the rest of the house blurs at the edges of my mind.

If I’m pressed to really think about it, although comfortable, this space might be less of a living room and more of a waiting one; an antechamber, on the outside of where my life will happen.

This is absolutely *not* to say that someone’s life —least of all mine!— doesn’t begin until they have romantic love. No, never. (Bffr.)

What I am trying to work through here is the fact that I have checked out of an entire arena of my life —accidentally, unconsciously somehow; a well intentioned but perturbed self-preservation mechanism; my lizard brain betraying me.

So, I’m coming to terms with the fact I’ve been in romantic purgatory. That part of my life has been on hold, and it is completely antithetical to who I say I am: someone who loves love, who wants it! In all its myriad forms. Who isn’t afraid to say so.

What I’m realizing, I suppose, is it is one thing to want love —in the hypothetical— and another thing completely to make yourself available to it.

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As I may have promised in a previous newsletter, I’ve started re-reading All About Love by bell hooks as a jumping off point. —One last book to sink into my mental reading nook with, then, before I’m officially evicted.

Halfway through, and I’m remembering exactly why I shelved it as “to re-read” on my customized Goodreads shelf —am finding more reasons on every page.

Calling on the work of psychiatrist M. Scott Peck in his self-help book The Road Less Traveled, bell hooks defines love as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth,” makes the distinction of love as a verb rather than a noun, and most profoundly, IMO, distinguishes love from care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, trust, or “cathexis:” “that process of investment wherein a loved one becomes important to us” (4-5).

Okay, that’s a lot. I know. Bottom line is, for hooks, it is possible —probable, even— that we falsely use “love” as an umbrella term to talk about acts of care, feelings of infatuation, moments of recognition, budding trust, etc. For hooks, love requires a variety of these “ingredients” to be present, and that we willfully (action verb) foster the personal, self-actualizing growth of one another.

She goes on to expound upon the various types of love we can apply these shared definitions to: child/parent, self-love, spirituality, romance… etc. (I’ve only re-read half, remember?) and she cautions that most people would rather accept a half-love, or just one ingredient to the larger recipe, (say, attention) than admit they do not have true love in their life (xviii).

“I did not want to accept a definition of love that would also compel me to face the possibility that I had not known love in the relationships that were most primary to me” (9).

This is an “ouchie,” as my writing class has been describing it, for me —one I can’t quite stand to unpack right now, so I’m going to leave it here with you <3 you’re welcome!

Sourced from Pinterest.

From my first read of this book, what I took with me most was this idea I’ve already alluded to: that “love” is an intangible our society never stops talking about but simultaneously can’t pin down. It has a million meanings, and for those who find themselves lacking it, (especially women) we receive subliminal messaging not to draw attention to the absence; not to act like we wish things were different —God forbid we express desire for love in our lives!

It’s this overdone desperate woman trope that bell hooks helped me overcome my fear of; a latent anxiety that if I expressed my love for love, or my desire for more of it —if I didn’t subscribe wholly to the “it will happen when you least expect it” logic— that I would somehow scare “it” away.

It was a powerful thing when I laid those anxiety-based modes of thinking down and picked up ones of self-belief, of optimistic excitement, and of hope for life’s —and love’s— possibility instead.

“It all started when I began to speak my heart’s desire, to say to friends, lecture audiences, folks sitting next to me on buses and planes and in restaurants that ‘I was looking for true love.’ Cynically, almost all my listeners would let me know that I was looking for a myth. The few who still believe in true love offered their deep conviction that ‘you can’t look for it,’ that if it’s meant for you ‘it will just happen.’

Not only do I believe wholeheartedly that true love exists, I embrace the idea that its occurrence is a mystery—that it happens without any effort of human will. And if that’s the case, then it will happen whether we look for it or not.

But we do not lose love by looking for it” (180).

At the risk of sounding like another viral TikTok mystic, I must tell you I have found a pinch of comfort knowing that I cannot miss what is meant for me; I cannot scare it away —it’s headed toward me, inevitably; it could smack into me on the street tomorrow.

It’s a love ethic I heavily subscribe to —heck, I’m on the Patreon!— I have to be. Because what else do we have, besides the hope of it all? I, for one, never want to know.

“We do not lose love by looking for it,” and damn if I don’t look for it everywhere! <3

Relatable, and also sourced from Pinterest.

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As alluded to above, I have recently become a part of a very special group: my Writing With Confidence class, led by the fierce Haley Jakobson. Inspired by them, as well as one of my peers in this sub(stack) of the Internet, Emie Garrett, I will leave you with a couple of my poetic musings on love (literally everything I write qualifies, depending how you cut it).

One, which I wrote in an undergraduate writing course, revisited this week, and still liked —it was never shared. I want to go back and hug that girl who was embarrassed to call herself a writer, whom so much has changed for and some hasn’t at all. Happy Valentine’s Day to her xxx

The other, which I wrote the other day, wanting to produce something; to condense my thoughts into something digestible for ten tiny Instagram squares (always a feat). I don’t love it, but I’m learning to sit with those feelings, and I do love the marked growth as a writer that evidences. Happy Valentine’s Day to her —to me— too <3

I could love anyone

Today I realized that I have been in relationship with your absence longer than your presence;

My loneliness longer than you.

Our relationship —how I relate to you— has become something else entirely;

All the more real, arguably. It’s all I have left.

I’ve been thinking so much about how I could have loved anyone.

Not anyone as in it should have been someone better, but that it could have been someone worse

—It could have been anyone.

I mean that I had —and still, to a degree, have— so much leftover love.

There was a time, surely, the whole of it was misdirected.

But I have a wealth of love for myself, cultivated compulsively now. And yet, there’s more.

I could love anyone, really, if given the chance.

I often do.

I like this reminder: that so much of the love I miss periodically,

When loneliness and comparison set in,

I contributed. It welled from me. It’s still mine.

I could love anyone, and I’m sure I will.

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Hopeful Romantic

I’ve never allowed the tempting cynicism of love

—or lack thereof— too much room;

never had the heart.

Maybe I called being “her”

in too many Disney movies during childhood,

or have read too many good books in the time since;

but I still adamantly believe in fairytales.

Better yet, I believe in the boundless possibility of my real life.

(I’ve known fairytales. You only ever see the beginning.)

I’ve always found PDA sort of endearing; can’t help

but secretly smile to myself

when I see the intimacy between two strangers

written plainly across their bodies.

I find it refreshing; can never look away

when two older people are captivated by one another

in conversation; in eye contact; in spirit.

And even others, who have just settled into

the warm, safe groove of partnership and routine;

I still find the idea quite hopeful —moving.

I still toy with the idea of love returning

to my front step; rapping gently on the screen door.

When it does I hope I’ll greet it warmly, offer tea or coffee

ask how its grandmother’s been doing.

I have this white-knuckled, held tight to belief

that love must be what holds us together

—to ourselves and one another.

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Well, there you have it, folks. I love this holiday so much; will always snatch up any excuse to be loud about my love —I’m brimming over with it!

And maybe it’s a hot take, but I think being honest about what you want —even if it’s (gasp!) romantic love— *is* self-love; it’s what it’s all about.

I’ll leave you with this image, which looks eerily similar to the Scribbled Milk logo, and my love!!!! playlist, just because.

Sourced, you guessed it, from Pinterest.

Sending so! much! love! from my screen to yours, xoxo

—Madilyn