“You’ll ache.
And you’re going to love it.
It will crush you.
And you’re still going to love all of it.
Doesn’t it sound
Lovely beyond belief?”
- Ernest Hemingway
This is how I used to view love. That is, until I found healthy love. I used to think marriage, and romantic relationships, were something you had to “fight” for and something that I would have to work on for the rest of my life. There is some truth to that, but it shouldn’t be all encompassing.
Healthy love is quiet. It waits in the corner for you to accept it. It supports your dreams and builds you up. It allows you anger without fear of abandonment. It isn’t huge fights in order to lead to bursts of passion.
This is, however, how I view art.
Sometimes it hurts like hell. It cuts you open so that you have to sit with yourself.
Healthy love has allowed me to create my most meaningful art. It’s allowed a safe space so that I can let all parts of me leave and then come back anew.
My home life is pretty ordinary and safe. The idea of that used to bore and scare me. It’s most likely because I was so used to the explosions and everyday turbulence of love before.
My art pulls me apart and love reals me in.
I hope to teach my daughter that the greatest love in life isn’t romantic love, but rather love with oneself.
