empathy

DEAR MOMMY, I DON’T NEED ROMANTIC LOVE TO FEEL WHOLE. I AM ENOUGH.

Embroidery Art by Jose Murphy

Mommy,

Everyone in my class keeps writing about love,
Falling in and out of love,
Desired love and unwanted love,
And the list goes on and on…
They remind me of children who appear to find difficulty in comprehending different topics in this complex world.
Well it’s not that they can’t comprehend any other aspect of this universe,
But they don’t care as much about anything else.

Why do they act like they understand love?
Are they not aware of the fact that love fears being understood?
They try to throw their delusions at me,
Informing me how love is the most powerful thing on earth,
How love is the answer to every issue,
How love is what will fill that emptiness everyone has.

Mommy now they’re fabricating fairy tales,
And I’m fabricating stories about revolt and war,
They’re writing about the prince in shining armor and their one true love,
I’m writing about my fascination with the different perspectives about the afterlife.

Mommy, I don’t understand their obsession with love.
I’m starting to question their goals in life,
Is it just to get married and have a family?
Are we raised in societies that condition you to think of love as such a necessity in life?
We grow up imagining who we’re going to end up with,
Imagining how many kids we’ll have,
Imagining where we’ll live together,
Imagining how we’ll grow old together,
Imagining having someone special to finally belong to.

But Mommy,
What if I belong to myself?
What if I do not dream about finding someone to fill the emptiness?
What if I enjoy the emptiness?
Not necessarily enjoying the emptiness, but enjoying the quest to fill myself up with knowlegde, curiosity, freedom, passion, peace, happiness, chaos…
Instead of fantasizing about getting married,
What if I fantasize about establishing a career?
About publishing a small book,
About having pets – a dog and a cat, maybe even a lizard.
About designing my own massive art studio,
About exploring as much of the world as I can.

Mommy,
why am I considered so different from people driven by love?
Why am I mocked for not caring about their type of love?
Why do I get weird looks when I say I have no interest in being with someone?
And even when I cover up my previous statement by explaining how “I wouldn’t mind ending up alone if I don’t find someone l’m comfortable with.”
Oh no, I am still considered unusual.

Mommy,
Tell me why do I feel like a dagger just pierced my center when they tell me I should change my perspective.
When they tell me it’s not good to be this independent,
When they tell me I shouldn’t be blunt with the guys that flirt with me,
When they tell me I shouldn’t think of small talk as ridiculous,
When they tell me I should put logic aside and follow my heart.

Why don’t they understand that what they call the “heart” doesn’t actually feel,
Do they know our emotions actually stem from our brain?
And so what if I think emotions make me act irrational?
So what if I don’t act on impulse?
So what if I don’t like expressing my feeling verbally?
So what if I inhibit my emotions?
Why do you assume that I don’t have any emotion when I don’t yell back at you in an argument,
When I don’t let you kiss me,
When I don’t express exaggerated happiness,
When I refuse to talk to you if I’m mad or sad.
Huh?
Maybe I am the way I am because I am consumed by anxiety, by sadness, by happiness, by fear, by courage.
Maybe I am a huge bundle of emotions.

“But if you’re such an emotional person then you SHOULD be in peruse of love.”
Yeah that’s what they told me Mommy.

So I told them I fear love,
And I fear attatchment,
And I fear losing my independent self to someone who can’t go on in her life if she’s not beside her love.
I told them I don’t enjoy imagining someone to “complete me”.
I told them I’m already whole,
I told them I’m not.
I told them the cliché “I choose to love myself.” explaining how in my mind everything eventually falls in place if you do.
But they laugh and roll their eyes.

So Mommy,
they’re still writing about love in class,
And they still act like they understand it,
They’re still giving me weird looks, and telling me to change.

And all I wonder about is the reality that love was a notion created by humans,
And if they had never seen what love portrayed as,
Or heard about what love is considered to feel like and be.
Then “love” – the necessity of life as they refer to it
Would not even exist.

 

Sumer Ziady

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