when one system crumbles, then all of them must follow
i've never wanted to be in a relationship yet i am always in a relationship.
sometimes my actions and thoughts are series of contradictions rationalized by one thing and unmoored by another.
i struggle with the difference between friendships and romantic relationships and everything in between. who drew the lines? is it simply the rules that come with titles? the unspoken rules that everyone must understand that your partner comes first in this relationship hierarchy or why certain physicality is meant for one person and not the other. certain emotions. a checklist of what you can give and what you cannot.
is it easier to follow an out of box system than to create your own agreed upon boundaries with each individual person?
can i kiss you or not?
but if i don't believe in monogamy as a system, polygamy is also not the answer either. the idea of any rules and labels and systems is not appealing to me. once you break through one thing, then everything else also quickly falls apart.
work is fake. money isn't real. time and space are constructs. who really cares. we can do anything.
i thought how i desire to love, be loved, 'love' as an action would change when i grew up. that the way i loved would be something i would eventually mature out of but it simply never did.
when i was younger, i never understood if it was because i had too little love and respect for another person or if it was too much love and respect for them to pretend that love is singular.
i don't like to pretend. actually terrible at it.
(tangent: i really wish i was better at lying in interviews. i know people always say just lie. but i can't. my brain immediately rejects the premise maybe the core of it is why are we lying? i thought we all know this whole things is farce. if we are both pretending, then why can't we skip the pretending part?)
i know i'm extremely fortunate that the person i love accepts the way i love. the way that i want. want more for me, for us. but sometimes i worry. what boundaries i push. what boundaries i compromise. i'm scared that at the end, i still see love as a beautiful transient experience that doesn't need to be kept and if it'll still be ok.
i'd like it be ok but also ok if it's not.
my thoughts remain a series of contradictions rationalized by one thing and unmoored by another.
ps this is a very pretty story written by edna o'brien, illustrated by laura berger telling a story of a wife who takes swimming lessons everyday to fit in with her husband and society, despite neither liking swimming or the sea.
