An Ode To Unrequited Love
Unrequited love is probably one of the most excruciating experiences there is. At least it feels that way to me.
Love, such a delicate flower; its blossoming is like the miracle of nature itself, a force like the rising of the sun, it’s a complete and utter mystery.
When love happens, it’s a blessing from the divine. It’s appearance, numinous. It opens me up beyond the layers of my own reality. There is something ecstatic about the uncertainty, something dangerous about the unknown taste of love. It’s destabilizing, hugely vulnerable, and it humbles me to my knees.
And when it’s unrequited, I’ve come to see there are two options. Let it shut me down or let it open me up.
Because at the end of the day, it’s not love that’s unrequited, it’s the not-being-met-in-the-field-of-love that’s unrequited. Love still exists and that’s as pure as the light of day.
It’s taken me many years to get to the point where unrequited love can open me up. I’ve spent many years suffering when I felt rejected in my desire to love. I’d take it personally, feeling like there was something I did or didn’t do. And sure, the pain of rejection still exists, but now something else happens.
By fully embracing the heartbreak and the longing, opening my body and soul to experience the full scope of the emotion, I’m actually taken deeper into love. When I let myself be ripped open by the depths of my humanness, I’m taken into the full expansion of my divinity and in that, my capacity to love. It’s hugely paradoxical. It makes no sense to the mind but I now see that I have nothing to fear. I am free to love.
I just did a quick search about unrequited love and found this on Wikipedia: “Eric Berne considered that ‘the man who is loved by a woman is lucky indeed, but the one to be envied is he who loves, however little he gets in return. How much greater is Dante gazing at Beatrice than Beatrice walking by him in apparent disdain’.”
At the end of the day, what’s important is love. The child in us needs to be received, the woman or man of us is free to let love run its course, whether it’s an eye gaze or a lifetime of marriage.
Let love’s presence open us to the true magnitude of our existence because love is numinous. It’s the human and the divine in one crazy basket.
And according to Wikipedia, the Roman poet Ovid in his Remedia Amoris: “provides advice on how to overcome inappropriate or unrequited love. The solutions offered include travel, teetotalism, bucolic pursuits, and ironically, avoidance of love poets.”
Whilst I agree with travel and bucolic pursuits you can count on it that I’ll be drinking wine and writing love poetry until the end of my days.
For more self-study, The Urban Howl recommends The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom
Sip a little more:
Lie Down Your Defenses, Get Vulnerable & Feel Your Way To A Force Of Love So Great
Cracking Through My Personal Bullshit — You Don’t Have To Be Perfect, To Be Loved
