I keep waffling on whether to respond to this thread. It may be entirely retrograde of me, but I do think there is a difference between love and being "in love," the latter of which is, in my experience, a kind of rip-tide: sucking me down into some scary painful out-of-control underwater place--but blissful too of course. I have felt that kind of emotional pull to both my children and to my few past lovers; the emotion being the same, the need to act (somehow, in some way) being similarly urgent and irresistable, although the actions themselves are decidedly different for the differing relationships.
I think, for me, that kind of rip-tide place has to resolve itself no matter what the relationship. It's not very sustainable. I can't breathe down there, really, but I don't want to leave it even so. The pain of losing such a beloved is almost unimaginable.
I have lost lovers that I still care for, and have had some relationships resolve into intimate friendships that are amongst the most satisfying of my life.
I love my partner, my two girls, and my few bosom friends. With these lasting relationships, I am not generally in that rip-tide place, although most of these relationships began there. And that's a good thing. I can visit there, sort of, in orgasm or memory--neither of which are quite the same, emotionally, as the being-in-love. And then come back to a better, more stable place--where I'm more capable of making the morning coffee, playing music, writing poetry, changing the cat litter, paying the bills.
Still, I suspect that the intensity of that initial, breathless bonding somehow helps sustain the ties. |
