notes on love

something that has kept coming up recently for me is the concept of love. different types, how I feel about it, monogamy, platonic vs. romantic love, friendships, love languages, attachment styles, etc.

a recent situation-ship has made me realize the value in connection, especially unspoken like the kind that radiates through your entire body when you make eye contact and when your fingers lightly graze theirs. a crush, a connection, that feels like an electrical current. a crush that makes you feel so present like you’re seeing life for the first time. “heart vs. brain”…lust vs. safety…I find myself often acting in purity, I rarely overthink…is that a gift or a curse I don’t know.

there’s 8 types of love: philia: affectionate love, pragma: enduring love, storge: familiar love, eros: romantic love, ludus: playful love, mania: obsessive love, philautia: self love, agape: selfless love

i didn’t realize that types of love were established like that, and now everything makes sense.

a crazy thing about love too, is how it can change and warp and strangle and grow and torture. you can have love and then it goes away. sometimes it will disguise itself as something else: comfort, lust, companionship, insecurity. sometimes some love never goes away. sometimes it’s obsessive, it’s consuming…sometimes it feels like a warm blanket on a cold night.

talking about and experiencing love feels often like trying to pick up an entire river with your bare hands. you feel the water on your fingers but it slips away just as fast. love is in motion. so maybe writing about it is pointless. it makes me angry sometimes that i can’t seem to always form the right decisions or thoughts about love.

i often don’t know if i do the right thing; how do we know what love is worth fighting for? what love we need? if someone will continue to love us forever?

i’ve never been good with unknowns. safety to me is loving from afar, on my terms, with one foot always out of the door. detachment is my love language.

maybe for now i’ll stop asking so many questions and just sit in the river for a bit.