Fair warning: this may seem a bit jumbled.
There are so many different kinds of love... And is any one kind better than another? Deeper, sure. But better?
I have loved some of my friends more deeply than I have loved some of my boyfriends.
I have loved multiple people the same way, I have loved some people the way I should have loved other people, and there are people that I have loved in ways that I could never love anyone else.
I also have noticed that I very rarely stop loving someone. With the exception of my first boyfriend and this mistake from a few years back that makes me shudder, I still have feelings for everyone I've ever loved.
For instance, somewhere inside me is the first grader who was so smitten with Devon that she secretly kissed the top of his head through his baseball cap in the middle of storytime. There is also the middle schooler who wrote poetry about Kyle's eyes. There is the high schooler who got heart flutters and couldn't keep from grinning every time Justin made that face.
Of course these things don't translate to present day; Today-Me has no feelings for Today-Devon or -Kyle or -Justin—I can't say I even know them anymore. The feelings are still there, though—and they are still very real.
When I was 18, someone asked me if I thought it was possible to love two people at once. I said yes. I still would say yes, because of how many different ways there are to love someone. I understand why people would say no... It's the whole "I love you with all my heart" thing, right? I get that. I have known people who love like that. I'm not sure if I've ever loved like that, though. I feel like my heart is crowded... and yet it keeps growing to let more people in. I don't know if anybody can have all my heart. That makes me really, really sad. I want to be able to love the way so many people want to be loved. I just don't know how to stop loving unless the love turns to hate. I don't want to keep hurting people, but I think this is really hard to understand if you are one of the "all my heart" people. I don't want to have to clarify my exact meaning every time I tell someone I love them.
Sometimes I feel like the song Cactus Tree by Joni Mitchell:
"There's a lady in the city
And she thinks she loves them all
There's the one who's thinking of her
There's the one who sometimes calls
There's the one who writes her letters
With his facts and figures scrawl
She has brought them to her senses
They have laughed inside her laughter
Now she rallies her defenses
For she fears that one will ask her
For eternity
And she's so busy being free
...
She will love them when she sees them
They will lose her if they follow
And she only means to please them
And her heart is full and hollow
Like a cactus tree"
It isn't an exact fit, but pretty dang close.
Is it ok to be this way? Does it make me a bad person, or a shallow person, or... something?
When I get thinking about this stuff, I usually end up thinking that I should only have friendships. But I so easily get carried away...
Anyway, I think at this point I'm going to start talking in circles, so I guess that's all for now.
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