Luh U Dawg
At times I’ll use this phrase to end a text correspondence with my brother. I stole it. It’s a Life According to Jimmy’s sketch I watched on YouTube a lifetime ago. It was such a good idea, so good I found it difficult to laugh. Jimmy finds himself in an emotional conundrum at Christian’s casual, brotherly, non-complex “love you bruh, bye”. As Christian turns around to go back and do whatever it is hot guys do in L.A, I don’t know what constitutes as hot guy stuff, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Back to us. Jimmy has no fucking clue how to react. He clearly wants to acknowledge he heard his friend, not only with his ears but with his heart yet he doesn’t know how to verbalize this in an emotionally secure and hetero way. Who knows how our dear JT, the character not the actual human being with another hot L.A guy life, defines love? He clearly doesn’t know how to describe and express the friendship he shares with a person he has known for years. Shared a house with. Good times with. Hot guy shit with, again, I don’t know what that could even be but I’m sure they’ve done it. Together. It’s beautiful thing. Friendship, not hot L.A guy stuff, or maybe it is, that’s besides the point because the fact of the matter is that Jimmy cannot use human words to appropriately determine how he feels for a friend.
In English speaking cultures the word “love” is given a symbolic weight and a heavy one at that. It’s a term that you use seldom when directed at people. What’s strange to me, as an outsider, is that you won’t hesitate in saying how much you love something. “I love this new song” or “I love this top on you it really brings out the loneliness in your empty stare” or whatever. When it comes to the word love in human relationships it’s almost as if there’s a competition to see who says it last. How long can I go without telling this person how I actually feel? As if feeling love is somehow something to be ashamed of.
Why though?
Deciding that I love someone is very easy for me. I know when I feel it. There’s something that tells me: “give this person all the kisses”. I feel this with boys, of course, but also with cool people I meet, my bad ass friends and my bat shit crazy family. Loving feels awesome. Why would you not want to experience it as often and with as many people as possible?
The English language is rather limited when it comes to words describing feelings of love. The kind of belly flips, churns and tingles I get when I think of a boy I find sexually attractive is very different to the chest opening pride I get when my brother does something incredible (or anything to be fair he could cut a watermelon good and I’d be like — “you go, bro”). I would use the term “love” to define both those situations. I love the boy that makes my insides melt and I love my brother. It’s kind of weird when I write those two phrases next to each other. But hopefully I’m getting the message across. The word love is multi-use. Kinda like a hair-band, a pocket knife or a laptop case!
What I learned about Romantic Love
Recently I found myself, as I usually do, in a weird situation that anyone with common sense may have seen as a clear catastrophe but that I dove in head first without checking for rocks before hand. I don’t want to get into details but we can say that there was another person involved. We made decisions based on a feeling that was probably more sexually motivated than anything else and then found ourselves looking at each other not really knowing what to do next. It was sad for me because I knew I liked him. Rejection sucks but when it’s looking directly at you it’s best to just accept it. So as I left with my heart in my hands, looking at him as I closed the door to my hostel, recognizing the emptiness in my lower belly, for the first time in a long time I had an adult thought. “I’m an adolescent when it comes to matters of the heart”.
Here’s what I learned at that pink sunset. Romantic love is a gamble. You can play your cards and get a huge reward or leave poorer than you were before. There’s a reason there’s an age restriction at casinos. An adolescent with no experience doesn’t weigh out their odds, calculate their risks nor tries to learn from previous mistakes. Adolescents just play. And that’s what I did. I just played the game of love and was somehow always surprised at my lack of success and broken heart. Like an adolescent I didn’t take it seriously. Suddenly I would wake up and realize “Shit, I’m in deep now” and have no idea what to do with myself. I didn’t even know what game I was playing anymore.
When speculating in the love stock market I’ll be sure to have some sort of an idea of what I’m doing but without being afraid to make that risky decision that may or may not end me. I’m sure one of these days I’ll meet someone with whom I interlace values, goals and love for childish humor with (and dogs, beautiful puppers, lot’s of ‘em). Until then whoever I encounter along the way teaches me something about myself that will help me find him. I’ll weigh out my odds, calculate the risk, learn from previous draws and repeat until I win.
Self love tip: dive in, check for rocks first and be ready to hit your head against some other asshole who jumped in just seconds before you. Don’t judge yourself if it doesn’t go as you’d have hoped. Forgive the metaphorical asshole, whatever that may be in your case. Forgive yourself. Forgive the other person. Eat cake. Watch a good movie. I recommend Deadpool. Move on.
That feeling, those jitters, the burning sensation in your cheeks, your crotch area on fire any time they come up in your daily internal monologue…those are things that are great to experience. Yes, when it ends it fucking sucks, but that doesn’t mean I or anyone should stop themselves from all the good shit that came before. There’s probably a reason it ended. There’s a lesson to be leaned. There is cake to be eaten. You can’t live your life in fear of the shitty part of love. That’s just weak.
What my brother taught me about love
I recently read an Article by Sarah Miller on the New Yorker. She talks about being a Hockey Sister and how her parents always preferred her brother as he demonstrated great athletic potential since a young age. Her parents nurtured that physical talent and she felt left out of the family dynamic. She used a phrase that moved me and that I couldn’t stop thinking about days after I read the essay: “It seemed impossible to become myself without hating my brother. ” Part of the person she became was based on a feeling she attributed to her sibling. It was ingrained into her idea of self. It was sad that it was such a negative feeling. I couldn’t possibly relate, my brother is my everything but in some ways I understand what she meant. When my brother came around and became a part of our chaotic tribe I had two very contrasting thoughts:
- This motherfucker has come to take over all my shit
- I will protect him with my life if I have to
It was wacky as fuck. I would fight with him at home and then as soon as we left the house I would beat the shit out of anyone who even looked at him weird. Seriously. Sometimes I’ll think about someone getting rowdy with him and I imagine kicking their teeth out. That’s what I think unconditional love is. See my brother could cut my arm off. I’ll be angry with him. I may even hate him a little bit but I’d still love him. He could kill someone and I’d still love him. He could become a terrorist and I’d find myself saying: “well, to be fair, they had it coming”. He could become a gluten-free vegan and I’d still…I mean, okay, maybe that’s a bit much, I’d take a little longer to adapt to that one…but ultimately I’d still love the shit out of him.
His presence in my life is part of who I am. The bond we have isn’t an external thing. It’s very much integrated in my sense of self. I wouldn’t be me without him.
What I learned about family is that we fight because we care about each other too much. We can’t see it in the moment. Especially if you have Mediterranean genes. We see red and like a bull we charge at it until we can’t scream any louder. Fundamentally though, once the dust has settled, and all the rage is gone, what’s left is loyalty and allegiance. Family is the kind of love that no matter how hard you try you’ll never hinder from. I’m glad that it didn’t take me a life time to see it and that I’m enjoying the fights, the make ups and the laughs with the people I share blood with.
What real friendships taught me about love
Having a friend is an absurd experience. It’s like seeing what your life could be like if you would have made different decisions. Everyone is around the same age, you’re more or less into the same things, you know each-other’s stupid and each other’s best. You live firsts together. You understand. Even when it’s insanely stupid you find yourself saying “makes sense, though”. These people, if they’re the good kinds of people, will have your back. They’ll be a part of your successes in life. They’ll be a part of your failures and you’ll laugh it off together. They’ll be the reason you wake up with a raging hangover.
My friends taught me the value of listening. Getting out of my own head. Focusing on others and through that become more empathetic. They showed me how I can experience real joy from their accomplishments. They showed me how, if you choose the good ones, they can add so much to your life if you let them. Together we learned that no matter how much water we drink we’ll still wake up hung over as fuck because we’re closer to thirty than twenty.
Friends reflect who you are. They are the proof of your milestones in life. Without them we accomplish nothing. Not in the real sense of the word.
Jimmy and his incapability to share his feelings with his friend is fucking hilarious. It’s funny to watch him struggle to find a way of looking like a ‘real man’ while being terrified at the same time of potentially losing the opportunity to tell his companion how much he loves him.
I guess I’m just soppy but I love the shit out of the people in my life. The ones that came before, the current ones and the ones to come. I think about loneliness, it gets to me sometimes but what I realized is that love can take many forms. Whether it’s my brother’s band new song, my friends new baby, my next batch of Kombucha, my dusty ass wagon. All these things are manifestations of love and I welcome them and love them with everything I got because life’s too short to not love. I’ll love the next crazy romantic adventure. It’ll be worth it. Even if it hurts.
Luh u dawgs!
Until Next week,
Sarita.
