"Love ends, just like everything else does," I tell my therapist, who nods. But I still don't understand the words yet, even as I say them. Everyone else seems to understand. I'm still word-mapping at the white board.
I've learned that I'm not going to live forever. That this body is going to die. And I'm ready to age and laugh through the creaking bones and the disappearing memories. And I'm ready to be my parents' parent, and graciously help them move toward the finality of their bodies in whatever way they need. I understand that we are all going to change as we creep, or dash, closer to that good night.
But learning how to love within the mortality of relationships is something I'm still wrapping my mind, body, and heart around. The grief of loving has hit way harder than this vengeful feminist would like to admit. And I'm sure it hasn't been fun for my partners as I've talked about such uplifting themes.
Purity culture is not just the church. I left when I was 19 (cue Tegan & Sara) and became polyamorous. But sex without love still felt cheap, and love without commitment felt like a lie. Love ending felt like being ripped in half.
Purity culture is not just the church. It's also emo music. It's American Football and Death Cab for Cutie and Brand New (aka my favorite f*cking music). It's women twisting themselves around the psychoses of men--the best of which are only self aware enough to ask you to sympathize, but not active enough to work on themselves.
Purity culture is not just the church. It's the fact that weddings are a party and divorces are not. It's thinking that love is the best thing, and singleness is the worst thing. It's hearing that one person cheated, and then asking what the other person did to "drive them away." It's assuming that a partner is the only way to save you from "dying alone."
* * * * * *
I was 13. A few years away from liking boys (they were still gross), and decades away from figuring out that I also liked girls. Abstinence was...the only thing adults in the church wanted to talk about with me.
Not my creativity. Not my struggles focusing in school. Fuck, not even my relationship with God.
They wanted to talk about virginity and "saving" myself like I was a bottle of champagne for someone to enjoy one day far in the future. (And honestly, I was one of the lucky ones...check out "Keep Sweet" on Netflix.)
I will never forget how every Christian woman lost. her. shit. when Amy Grant got divorced. It's all anyone would talk about for weeks. I couldn't listen to my favorite Amy Grant songs without hearing the following:
Oh oh faithless hearts, be far away from me...
"Yeah, she's one to talk. She had the faithless heart."
True love is frozen in time
"Yeah, and you froze it."
The same sun / that melts the wax will harden clay
and the same rain / that drowns the rat will grow the hay
"I don't like this song."
"You see Lis, God hates divorce. He wants us to work it out."
"But what if the husband was really bad?"
"There's always a way to work it out."
"What if the husband hurts her?"
"Sometimes he goes to counseling and gets better. If he doesn't, and only if he doesn't, then they can get divorced. But God still hates it."
Amy Grant wasn't abused (though to her critics, it truly wouldn't have mattered). She merely fell in love with another man who brought her more joy and was easier to be with. The scandal of the decade.
What did I learn at 13? I learned that women aren't supposed to pursue their own happiness. They're supposed to pursue monogamy, which is greater than individual happiness. It's Divine Purpose. Truth. Belonging. Not-Dying-Alone. Family. A structure everyone can understand.
* * * * * *
I've been talking to my inner child a lot lately. Because in therapy, I keep hitting these platitudes about love ending, and how I'm supposed to move on from it.
Love isn't simple enough to make any definitive statement about it, and relationships have nearly infinite variables. But sexual energy and attachment energy are so strong and driving that we need ways to interpret what we're going through.
To quote John Green: We don’t suffer from a shortage of metaphors . . . But you have to be careful which metaphor you choose, because it matters. (Paper Towns)
Right now, love for me is like changing my clothes when I'm tired. I have to figure out where to put my arms and legs, and I have to think extra hard about it. Sometimes I just sit there with my shirt half on, my shoulders and back exposed. I realize there's no way to avoid it. I can't say, "I'm never changing my clothes again, because apparently the last pair of clothes wasn't good enough."
We will always have to change clothes. We're not getting out of that, no matter how thrilling or mundane the task is. We just...need them.
Some of them were ratchet mistakes, but taught me that I need a little more danger in my life--the olive corduroy mini skirt, the teal bubble shirt, the satin capris.
Some of them left before I was ready. The red zip up hoodie left pissed-on in a ditch, in a series of unfortunate events. I'm angry about its early departure instead of the threadbare age and the gradual oblivion it should have had. We always want more time, even at the very end.
With each piece, I uncover a new expression of my identity that will always be with me, whether or not the physical cloth is still in my closet. I guess the goal isn't actually having the perfect clothes. It's what I do with my time when I'm in them.
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