love, therapy, cliche (ii)

It has not been long. but it has never needed to be long. somethings they just happen suddenly and unexpectedly, and they disappear just as quickly. that's what makes it so difficult. i never expect it to come, so i am never prepared to receive it. then, before i could get use to it, properly take part in it, it is gone, and i am forced to mourn for a something that i hardly knew. i know tonight i will not be able to sleep, but it doesn't matter now, it's too late. love is like that, i already know what will happen but it's too late to do anything different. i've been sitting there for too long. long not because i was there long. not because i've loved long, not decades in years long, but centuries of feelings long. isn't that another cliche. centuries of feelings. and i didn't even know that i loved him. i just one day decided that i do, just because it does not seem right to call it anything other than that. no other name fits what i was feeling. it's strange that way. i say, i've loved him, not because i know for sure that it is love, but only because do not know what else to call it, so i give it this name which carry the most emotions that i can think of. it seems fitting, this not-quite-love, because while it carries as much need and want and longing as love, it has no purpose as love has. it doesn't have an end in mind, only what it would like to do, places it would like to be, things it would like to say. perhaps because it is inappropriate. it knows that it is inappropriate. that it will destroy that which it loves and also itself. maybe that's why it doesn't quite dare to call itself love, only i call it that because i don't know what else to call it. nothing else to call it but that. desperation maybe. wordless desire to name my feelings. to name it so i can recognize it and know it. because to know it is better than to agonize and drown in it. drowning, that too is a cliche. the problem with naming is that which you name will out-grow its name. it is inevitable, it will become too big to be contained in the name that you give it. and then, once it has escaped from its name, you know you have lost another one. that is why i hesitate to name. it always takes me a long time to find the right name for things. friend takes a while. care takes longer. love is the longest. because it grows the fastest and is the most fickle.




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the great thing about therapy, it seems to me, is that the therapist is both one and all, a spokeperson for the universal. like a priest who can forgive in place of God, and God is God for love and acceptance and community. how many times i look up at windows and wonder about the people behind them. their lives. where they come from. what they need. who they love.