The other side of fair weather

Well, Cinderella went to the ball - my dress was stunning, I felt like a million dollars, I had a tall and terrific date, our table was brilliant with non-stop banter and it was all for the benefit of the Cambodian Children’s Trust. It was a picture perfect night... All until my date walked out, leaving me to feel more like the kitchen maid stranded on her own, than Cinda-fucking-rella.

Antony’s exit was due to my panic of loosing my camera during the ball. Lost as a result of being kissed outside the hotel, and somewhat distracted, I had left my camera on our love seat. I was rather upset because of valuable and controversial nature of photos stored on the camera and it was after all, brand new. After some time trying to find it, a man walked up and asked "is this yours?", presenting my red sony case before my eyes. I was ecstatic, I gave him a 50 and went up stairs quickly to thank every one for helping me try to find it. When I got back, there was no sign of Antony.

Antony had been professing love for me in the weeks leading up to the event, then kissing me tenderly and telling me how stunning I looked in my Jennifer Aniston gown; so you can imagine my shock when he left. No good-bye, or thank you (I paid for the ticket) all in favour of going to play with his buddies in Orchid Towers.

What kind of love is that, I wondered? I am starting to think that the other side of these kinds of admissions of love only survives in fair weather.

On my table were Hannah and Steve, a wonderful couple that have become like family to me here in Singapore. Steve is hilarious, split a rib funny and Hannah is my sister when I don’t have a sister, golf buddy and dear friend. They’ve been together for 13 years, have a gorgeous daughter Charlotte, and are truly in love. And really love each other. They share the same values and have a wonderful friendship to support their years together. Great friends, great lovers and they know how to have fun together. They will be life long partners.

Then on Sunday night, "Indecent Proposal" was showing on HBO; the famous movie about Robert Redford offering $1M to have one night with Demi Moore. A couple so in love since they were 21, although crippled financial bills, allowed this predator to come between them. And of course, the fairy tale ending was them finding their way back to the place where it all started and love prevailed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvwpotOzxvM

It got me thinking, can love really conquer all? Isn’t that the saying? The fantasy and the movies seem to have it down pat, but I really don’t think us mere mortals have got it entirely just yet.

Nowadays, it’s become so much harder to fulfill the fantasy of boy meets girl, boy likes girl, girl likes boy, they get married and live happily ever. Outside forces, divorces and differences and less and less fair weather makes us all a little crazy. Today we’re all very complicated people, with layers upon layers of colours that shape and mould how we react, perform or treat other people we have relationships with.

Is the word l"ove" being used far too much, more flippantly, or as means to express something you are passionate about or like more than just “like” can explain? And what is the boundary when you express to a friend you really care for so dearly, and you tell them you love them all the time, then you share a kiss, yet the rules are it doesn’t mean anything? Don’t you think it dilutes the meaning of the word? (Which is more the case with Antony and I). Ha, when I was a little girl, I was of the belief that love meant forever, or rather that when you loved someone it would last forever. But then again, as a little girl, my dear Mum Gaysie, told me a Love Stork brought me to her! Lots of fair weather in my fantasy world.

Social scientists have published that the “in love feeling” typically only lasts for two years. Why is that? Some other scientists say it is a chemical high that turns us “on like lights” that cannot be sustained. Even they say fair weather love doesn’t last.

What is love? Is it a possession or attitude? Does it happen to us, or do we create it? And when some one loves you, what does that mean exactly? I know when I’ve been “in love” I feel like I can achieve anything, have insurmountable courage, can run faster than a speeding train, fill up ten balloons I one breath, and perform at my peak, absolutely high with uncanny ability.

To some it’s a euphoric passionate deep inner feeling, a rush of adrenalin, a spike of anxiety and high of endorphins, to only feel like you’ve fallen down a glacier, with deep wounds and a chest full of a dull painful aches when it is taken away or cut off from you like the rope that was guiding you down the mountain.

Why can’t there be a machine that can wipe you’re memory of all the hurt and pain and take you right back to the time with your first love, when you were innocent and naive to the ways of emotional power. A machine that erases just how far you fell when you were overcome by the power the love. Before we knew what “having a wall up” meant; and that if anyone wanted to get to you, they would literally have to climb K2 to find the real you.

I’m not talking about just single people either; I’m talking about all of us, universally. I know plenty of people in relationships that are "safe" because they don’t get asked questions and don’t have to look or delve any deeper than what is on the surface. Couples that certainly don’t have to acknowledge any emotional heart beats because they collude together to keep themselves in that very safe, emotionally monotone environment.

It might not be monotone for them, it might be incredibly comfortable, and “fish and chips” every Friday night in front of the television might really rock their boat – until one day, they meet that someone. It’s just a look; in fact it’s an instant look. A look that will change their life, as they know it, forever.

I walked into a bar one day in Pamplona, busting for the toilet when it happened to me. I had broken away from the group to find a pub, an instant split second decision, just like that – a bladder impulse would change two people’s lives forever.

Richard and I fell in love instantly. It was like neither one of us had ever experienced before. We felt like we were soul mates, destined to meet each other, but as the world would turn, not meant to be together. Unbeknown to me, Richard was already engaged to someone else. He loved this woman, but was not "in love". He met me and fell immediately in love because there was room within his world and heart to do so. He wasn’t fulfilled in his current relationship, even though he was going to stand at the alter and promise to love and obey her for the rest of his life.

Wrong or rightly, he allowed it go too far, our love was like an addiction to him, it was a passion that he’d never felt before and in his mind he couldn’t let it go….. Not until the day I found his wedding invitations in the bottom of his suitcase in a honeymoon suite hotel in Barcelona.

I was horrified. Devastated, torn to shreds, I hated it, I couldn’t fathom how someone could be so cruel, but I knew people couldn’t fake the kind of love that we shared, whether or not it was a fantasy, it was real between us. What was hard to admit, was a part of me understood what and how it had all happened. We fought and there were endless tears, but then decided we would make it happen, but he needed to time to deal with it at home.

He couldn't do it reality. He went back home and the guilt was too great - he chose to stay with his fiancé. He called me the day he got back from his honeymoon to say he’d made the mistake of his life. It was too late. I’d moved back to Australia by this stage and it had gone too far for me to forgive him and trust him. He called me constantly for another eight months, writing poems, singing “Chasing Cars” on my voicemail and telling me to look up at the full moon as it was our sign that we would be thinking of each other no matter where we were in the world.

If the truth were known, there was a part of me waiting for most of those months for him to walk through my front door with some gallant dramatic gesture to come and finally claim me, his soul mate, and we’d live happily ever after.

But the other side of that dramatic gesture was the cold reality of relief that he never did. I would have always questioned him, my family would never have accepted him, nor would his family forgiven him. He’d come from a family where his brothers were all in loveless marriages and they all stayed because that’s how it was done. He didn’t have the tools to do anything about his anger for getting himself into this mess, or his fear of getting out of it. It was fear that got him into it and it would be fear that would determine his life rather than happiness.

We all behave, react, argue, indulge, hate, fear and love the way we do largely guided by the limited or wealth of knowledge and experiences that we are armed with at that particular time. And, you know what, we all fall over. We all make mistakes, and as you well know, it’s how we pick ourselves up and acknowledge these lessons that really defines us.

We can wrap ourselves up in the most intense love and passion, we can feel as one while we make love and fall asleep in each others arms, yet we simply don’t have the power to control another human being. We can influence, we can nurture, we can lead, but ultimately we can’t force action, well not with out a kitchen knife anyway. So as I’m growing up, blossoming from a young buttercup daisy to taller stronger more beautiful Lilly, touching and feeling life, I’m learning that we are all affected by lifes elements in so many fundamental and different ways. I guess I’ve been dealing with the cause and effect of these differences; trying to embrace and accept.

The other side of all this is we can actually meet that special someone, fall in love, make promises, and buy gifts that we can’t afford, do ultraistic gestures and do things that really make us feel like we are lovers. But what can happen for a number of people, after we come down off the emotional high, all the euphoria evaporates the “we” becomes two self centered people who have made promises we can’t keep, in fact we’re incapable of keeping. So what happens is, that high, that “love” is replaced with hurt, anger, disappointment and fear.

My fear has also been in control, keeping me in a nice safe place, where no one can touch me like Richard did. The men I attract whilst are strong, they are not mountaineers, or interested in climbing K2 unless it’s for their own personal recreation. Time to pack up the climbing gear, and leave “Touching the Void” to Joe Simpson and his mate Simon. All risk, and high return I think, why the hell not? Safe hasn’t got me anywhere fast.

I can’t help but think if we were however, a little more realistic in our pursuits, maybe we wouldn’t make so many promises, or create expectations or pretend we are things we’re not, and search for the fair weather all the time?

I want to shake all of those people that are in relationships that are not fulfilling and say “wake up, go out there and find your soul mate”, but I’ve come to realize that people don’t want to take risks in life. That safe options more often than not are born from the foundation of their socialization, and what they knew growing up - so my way of thinking is completely nonsensical to them.

I’ve heard so many women say to me, “when you get married, you just feel more secure, you’ve got it then, you’ve got there.” Got where? Is there a marriage secret department store, and if you’re single or divorced, you’ve got no chance in hell in getting in? What does that mean exactly, that you’re safe from getting hurt? It makes marriage sound like a possession rather than a loving way of life. Or is that security is far more valuable than authentic love?

What are the virtues that possibly can deliver authentic love that is not just about the two year high? I believe to possess kindness, patience, forgiveness, courtesy, humility, generosity and most importantly, honesty is the answer. A healthy combination of these lovely characteristics used as a way of life, and not a quick fix for a temporary high, will see us through to achieving greater, more authentic love in our lives.

I really like Erich Fromm, a world famous psychoanalyst who talks about if we want to love others well; we need to be patient with ourselves first.

“To have an idea of what patience is, one need only watch a child learning to walk. It falls, falls again, and falls again and yet it goes on trying, improving, until one day, it walks without falling. What could the grown up person achieve if he had the child’s patience and its concentration in the pursuits which are important to him?”

I forgive Antony for leaving the ball, he had his reasons, I wasn’t very fair weather over the camera incident and it is not the end of the world. Richard also had his reasons for what he did. I can’t control the other side of that choice, but I did get to experience passion and euphoric love like I’d never touched before - one I shall not necessarily look for again. Robert Redford’s scheming Millions Dollar ways didn’t win over the true love of Demi and Woody, and Steve and Hannah make fantastic role models and have now become my moral and love compass with the men in my life. And....... I’ve come to believe that timing is always such a fundamental part of two people falling in love. It’s amazing that it ever happens really when there are so many obstacles in the way.


Here is to love, long may it last!

Fleur
TBS

P.s - A life with out risk is like no life at all.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQCqYXLC6Qo

This is what I was listening to – The John Barry Score to Indecent Proposal, one of my top 10 favourite instrumental scores from a movie. The real piece is 25 mins long, this is only 10. It truly is beautiful.