I've been grappling with a lot recently--about what I get from men, why I stay hooked, what it is about men as opposed to women that I love and cherish and stay for. I become infused and intertwined--with their journey, with their grapplings about life, with what they are seeking and wish to fulfill within themselves. We are all imperfect creatures, but men don't have the same kind of emotional support network that women do.
I love sensitive men. I love men who are grappling. I love men who are willing to share their innermost fears and desires. I love men who show me through our exchanges and soft, quiet moments what they need or what they might be struggling with. When we break on through to the other side and there is a moment or accelerated journey through true identification of what we need or what we are really seeking in life then I am released. I feel like my job has been done... for the time being. Women do that naturally, willingly, I think amongst ourselves and with the ones we hold dear. Men, however, especially if they didn't get that from their families or ones who are closest to them will hang on to whoever they can get that from--friends, lovers, family members, or true loves. There is just not the same emotional support network for men as there is for women. Men have to show and share amongst themselves true care and love--what they did not get from the men in their lives while they were growing up and move beyond the bounds and limitations of what "macho" love is and just share and engage in true understanding as friends--as men who "get it" and are there for each other as guys struggling on this journey of life and love.
I put a lot onto my men. I expect a lot out of them. I test and I challenge and I make them work for me--for this love, this deep, deep reservoir of love that I have and hold for them, maybe, if only, because women have always just been the reservoir of love and understanding that men cannot get otherwise. If I see or know that they love me as deeply as I love them, my love will know no bounds. I will go the distance, the extra mile, the absolute limits of what I believe love can be. Love is unconditional. Love is family. Love is an endless journey of giving and taking and knowing and breaking your limits--and then, taking it all back and opening yourself up back to what you thought love could not deliver.
I've loved so many men in my life. But I have never quite been willing to deliver myself completely to them, even though it may seemed like I did. My Love is Great. My love is too powerful. And most have been overtaken or overwhelmed by the power of my love.
And then I have my own inequities and insecurities and inability to voice or show my true fear or discomfort about where my true fears or disquiet lies. I want to, but I am scared. I still haven't met the man that I can do that with. Most of my fears rest in my body--as temporary as this physical place may be. It is what is. Most men have been drawn to me because of it, but then have never wanted to stay or love me despite it. This physical body is a novel telling--a journey of what we have all gone through in life. The problem is that most men (and women nowadays) are full of porn and/or the "perfect" girl/body/woman/man/guy and can't tell the difference between desire and real love. Do we just want the "body" that is going to give them what we want at that time--that particular moment... or can we go the distance? Because goddam, our bodies change! Women's bodies make babies! We expand and contort and scar and release and never stay the same. We change. Can you deal with that change? Can you still love us and hold us despite your own needs and desires, even though we may not embody what you really want physically, psychologically?
My talk about power does not rest in ego, though. It does not rest in the chaos of love. My love rests in the quiet and sweetness of being and sharing--as most women's love do. The difficulty, usually, is that egos come into play, someone is more busy or caught up than the other, both are too scared to reveal what is truly going on in their minds and hearts, both want what they cannot have, but may have found it in the other completely and are too afraid to accept that love is what it is: plain and simple. It's just love.
The love that I have for women is different--it's easy and fun, yet also layered and complicated by another deeper expectation of deliverance of who you really are and what you really are doing or embodying in your life. With a man, they expect less, and they give you the softness that you might not get from the women in your life. Men have given me a respite from the challenge and pressure I have felt from women to be or do certain things by a certain point--and that is, to say, simply by nature of where we are as women on a certain timeline, not necessarily because they are being bitches and making me feel bad about where I'm at or where they're at. I have very supportive, amazing women in my life. Truly remarkable, intelligent, beautiful women. And, they, always, give me the unconditional love and support that I need when I am struggling and grappling or hurt. A woman's love--no matter in what form: as friend, foe, lover, family or random link--is powerful and good. A woman's love nurtures and forgives, reminds and fills, tests, challenges, pricks and then soothes and protects. But a woman will always call you on your shit and do so point-blank; a man may not.
A man's love is different. It challenges, surely, but it fills holes and gaps and finds its way into fissures and cracks in a way that a woman's love does not. It soothes an open wound, it bathes tired skin, it lingers and gives where a woman will not. If a man is truly a lover, he will linger and love and see and bathe in your open wounds, take them in and cherish still and then take the time to try to help heal what he can, as discomforting or painful as it may be for him, if only because he loves you. Even when a man is trying to test you or his love for you, if he really is in love with you, he will be gentle. All of that other madness or bullshit or anger or whatever is simply his own shit that he needs to work out despite you will eventually dissipate and become something else (if he finds his proper expression and release). He will find another way to expend that frustration or anger, but then, you, as his love, will need to stay attentive and available in order to hold onto his love and you must not buckle. You must stay there in order to love him truly... and it's difficult when they continue to hurt you. But love between men and women is difficult: plain and simple.
That is why I stay hooked. I've experienced that from men. A few of them, not all of them. But when I have it's sucked me in and made me give more and more. Maybe I've known a few good men. I don't know. They've had their shortcomings, too, but where I appreciate them over the women in my life is that women want results. Women want to know and see and believe that what they are doing and why we are doing this now is eventually going to see results. The men in my life have been more forgiving. I am probably over-generalizing, as I am prone to do, but this is just my take on things and gender roles and how I've perceived or experienced life and love to be between men and women thus far. Men, actually, seem to be more forgiving and loving in the sweetest, most gentle of ways; women are more hardcore. Women want results NOW, men will be willing to see results later. If you are a passive woman and don't know yourself yet then you will be willing to wait, but the older you get the less patient you will be to wait for the men to catch up with you. Yet, love is this: initially intoxicating and inherent and then felt and longed for and met
But, I don't know the first fucking thing about love or relationships. Love is what it is and relationships are always in the making. Love is what it is--and it's a goddam beautiful thing. The rest of it is just life and living and figuring it all out...
All I do know is this: Love is beautiful. Love is to be cherished and honored. Love is rare. Love is a good thing. Love is something to tuck under your belt, hold close to your heart and then keep there forever and ever. Love is good. Love is forever. Love is so goddam complicated, but gaddam, makes me so happy and full. Love is worth it.
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