“I can understand having issues over trust.” My girlfriend explained to me over her Starbucks. “I’ve worked hard for what I have. My house is paid off, and so is my car. I’ve built a life for myself. Why would I invite someone in to that? Why would I risk losing it all?”
I double-blinked at her. Weren’t we talking about love? Weren’t we dreaming over finding our soulmates?
“I guess I’m really happy by myself,” she mused on. “He can have his house, I’ll have mine. Everything would be separate, if I got involved again. Maybe someday.” She ended on a deep sigh.
We had been talking about a mutual friend, whom I’ll call Gina. Gina had an old lover pop back into her life recently, and because both parties were more afraid of love than they were attracted to each other, he became more and more distant and she demanded constant conditions on how the relationship would proceed. It only took two weeks before the whole relationship disintegrated into a pile of tears for Gina. However, the next day she was happy and said that she was “relieved”, glad that she had steered clear of a disaster.
“I’ve known him for thirteen years.” She had said. “I’ve never been able to trust him. Something always comes before me, with him, and I need to be first.”
I wondered, was this even a realistic request in a new relationship? But if not, why wasn’t it? Is love, true love, filled with so much self concern?
I remember being young and open for love. It was all still new. I remember being in love with William when I was twenty years old. I would have done anything for him, and pretty much did. My step-father didn’t approve of him, so at twenty-one, with no money and a part-time retail job, I moved in with my friend Katie just so I could see Will on a steady basis. Was it financially stupid? Of course. I had no idea about what I was doing. I slept on an air mattress, ate cheap food, barely had enough gas to put in my car. But Will was mine.
I remember how whenever I saw him my breath would catch, every time. He was so beautiful to me. I wanted to know everything about him, every interest, every hobby. What fascinated him? What broke his heart? What lifted him up? I couldn’t bear to let him go at the end of the night, and would talk to him for hours at night on the phone, waiting for him to fall asleep so I could hear him breathe on the other end, slow and rhythmic, until it put me to sleep. The phone line would be open all night, with both of us fast asleep, receiver tucked under our ears.
Making love on that tiny air mattress was pure bliss. Wrapped around each other, I’d beg him to breathe to me, and in a deep kiss he’d exhale and I’d pull his breath into my lungs. I wanted to become a part of him, and hated the boundary of bone and skin. On occasion I came dangerously close to bruising him, holding so tightly, nails dug into his back, willing myself inside of his flesh. I was lost, and wanted to be lost. Nothing else mattered.
Four years later, William broke up with me. My world stopped, went into slow motion. I begged, pleaded, promised anything to make him stay. But when one is no longer in love, there is nothing to be done. Feeling guilty for hurting me, he tried to make it work, but I felt his sadness and knew that I was the cause of it. I had caged the wild bird for my pleasure, but when he would gaze out the window instead of gazing at me, there was no pleasure to be found, only agony. All he wanted to do was fly. With a broken heart, I opened the cage door…neither one of us could be together once his love had left. It was done.
Now in my forties, I find that, somehow, passion has been squeezed out of us older folk. It’s no longer about love and intimacy; relationships now seem to be about business matters. Do you have a decent job? Can I see your financials? How’s your health? What type of insurance plan do you have? Love is a business contract among the over forty crowd. And at the first sign of passion, we run screaming, “Eek! Stalker! Fatal attraction”
Sex turns into something that you just kind of do. Do our parts fit together? Do you snore when it’s over? With William, I remember trembling in his arms, needing his touch so desperately that I thought I’d burn up. There’s a line in a Dire Straights song, Romeo and Juliette, that has Romeo saying, “Juliette, when we made love, you used to cry.” With William, I did, every time. But once we hit over forty, we desensitized old folks merely roll over and go to sleep, like nothing wonderfully beautiful had ever happened, because for us, it didn't. We go through the motions as if we weren’t even present.
True intimacy happens later. I have been speaking of early, romantic love, which does evolve into something deeper. Love, hopefully, gets stronger after challenges. Two people grow, compromise, fight, go through Hell and back, and eventually stand together, knowing that their partner, their love, is the extension of themselves. But this rarely happens any more…it’s easier to give up, move on, and get free of the things that could have brought them closer together. I’m guilty of this, too. How can we demand trust when we are so selfish? How can my friend say, “Trust is an issue, and if I love again, I’m keeping my stuff separate”? Why do we expect surrender of others if we will not give of ourselves freely?
It seems to me that by forty, we should be better at intimacy, not worse. We should know how to love completely, not to be jaded and selfish and wall ourselves away from it.
When William left me, I thought I’d die. I really did. The agony I went through was more than I was able to bear…I even had a night of such severe panic that I knew I had been on the verge of slipping into a breakdown. The insanity was creeping in, and it was only because of the visit from a divine friend that I am here, and sane, today. He anchored me and brought me back to this world. I was that close, and I was willing to go through that door and not come back. My mind was that fragile.
But the funny thing is, I would gladly trade my now jaded heart for the one I had back then, all those years ago. I may have been needy and immature, but I FELT SOMETHING. I was alive, I was willing, and I had someone in my life that I would have walked through fire for. Now I only have emptiness and memories. I am so well walled and protected that I have become the caged bird who gazes out the window.
But I still have some passion left. Maybe, someday, he will come to set me free. And his bank account won’t matter at all.
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