21 April 2009

Got Love?

You're in the bedroom moaning with sexual pleasure from a partner you love.
I'm in the kitchen-- same house, or one miles or countries away. And madly in love with you.

If I LOVE you-- unconditional, limitless, real capitol LOVE, not lust or puppy love or that wonderful romantic love we all get when we first meet someone special-- then why would I not be happy that you are gaining pleasure?
My being jealous doesn't denote love.
That I demand, expect or think that all your pleasure--sexual or otherwise-- come solely from me is not only unfeasible but smacks more of a want to possess, of ego-driven self-aggrandizement.

OUTSIDE OF SEX
Two of the three people I profess to love will never share a bed with me. "He" won't because neither of us are homosexual. "She" won't for various reasons, distance being a major factor. (Even if we were close the love might needs remain unrequited due to the opines of her spousal unit-- whom she loves very much, thank you.)
That doesn't negate ONE IOTA the love I feel for them.

Is that love 'different' than the love I share with the one I actually have a shot at getting into the sack?
Sure-- insofar as they are unique individuals. For me the love for each one differs not in amount, not 'more' or 'less', but in shades of subtlety having to do with reasons we were drawn together. Personality types, interests, dislikes... all factor in, but I don't see the LOVE in and of Itself as different. Different than family (e.g. sibling or parental) love, but the same love one non-blood related adult has for another.

50% OF [Traditional] Marriages...
So you're married. Happily. In love. The kind of love that grows as your friendship and life together are growing, long after the initial romantic fires wane. (And they do, folks. Be Honest.)
Then...
Attraction to another. Even if it is purely a physical attraction it doesn't cause you to love your partner any less.
Who's in your mind's eye that night during love-making?
And what if you and this new attraction begin to become friends, bond.. Does development of this new one cause those aspects of your current relationship to diminish? Might seem so, given the divorce rate.

But I question...

Was the first "love" Love? Now you only love the second "love"? Was, or is, then, this love you transferred Finite? You can't still feel them both?

I don't have the answers. These are questions helping me constantly examine and evaluate my beliefs on this issue.

Thanks to everyone for commenting on this. Your words and thoughts have occupied endless hours of my time. A little extra thanks to Allie for prodding a good deal of today's thought on the matter.

And Granddaddy (and Grandmommy!) THANKS to He, She, and V.J.T. for bringing an exceptional-- and it seems, an extraordinary-- amount of LOVE into this bird's existence...

Hale and Farewell, folks.

Cygnus

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cygnus...your words will cause many to stop and ponder.

Deep thoughts will be inspired. Some answers may come...some may lie hidden...

I am thinking even as I type this.

Happy Day, Cygnus!
:)

Renee of the Fae said...

People say that there are only two constants in the world: Death and Taxes. Not so; there are three. The third being Change. Love changes just as everything/body/spirit/etc. I still love my idiotic ex-boyfriend, but in a different way than I once did. He was my first love and I will always hold a special place in my heart for him, but, now it is a different kind with a wish and a hope that one day he finds everlasting love and happiness; just as he hopes for me.

Cygnus MacLlyr said...

Amazing, Renee-- I just this sec came from your spot...

Very good point there, Lady.
One I'll ponder (have some, will more now!); got a serious feeling I'm not yet done with this topic...

Thanks, girl!

Cygnus MacLlyr said...

Ahh, my Sweetest of Cheeks...

Thinking is good, I'm thinking...

;P

Unknown said...

The first part of what you said makes my blood boil for two reasons...1. If I were in the same house, room, what the hell ever and knew that my man was getting pleasure from someone else I would probably cut a bitch...why? Well it has less to do with jealousy and more to do with love...if you love someone real, honest, can't breathe without that person love you do not need or want for anyone else...2. If you do need or want for someone else then it is NOT love!

I believe that you can absolutely love more than one person at the same time, but I don't think it's possible to be truly in love with more than one person.

I will be the first to admit that I have thought (rather foolishly) that I was in love several times in the past only to realize later that I had no clue what love is...I don't pretend to know the answer to that question even now but I do know that I could or would never knowingly share my spouse with someone else and assume it was love!

Cygnus MacLlyr said...

Mommy, a good point was brought up in a previous comment-- that EVERYTHING changes-- love included. That is what I meant in the post, about the "romantic" love 'fading', only to be replaced...

i can only say I never would have either [nor have, to date. no Right Opportunity] 'share' a partner. But since I don't OWN or POSSESS, they are not MINE to "share". I just know that when Jeanie [aka V.J.T.] was "not mine", I came to the conclusion that she WAS, as was/is my love for her.

I am NOT trying, here, to convert anyone to views outside their belief zone; merely exploring my own.

I do sincerely thank you for the comment, my most favorite Misadventurous one...

And check the other post/comment section; good exchange going on [THANKS,LIVIA!!!]

Thanks, A.!!!

Unknown said...

Well it may get me booted or whatever the hell other bloggers do when you piss them off but screw it...and I'm sure that Livia chick doesn't like me either now (since I got a lil nasty on her cop out comment) but you can't win them all!

Cygnus MacLlyr said...

no one's trying to win, My Mommy... there isn't a competition here...

A forum. All views welcome. hope you answered her-- keeps the conversation going.

You woulda 'booted' me long ago were our true opinions not welcome-- oui?!?

:D

Kyddryn said...

Sigh.

When I got married, I told the poor fool that he should have some reason other than love for going beyond shacking up. Love grows, fades, changes, evolves. It's a living thing, is love, and it doesn't hang in stasis.

Sometimes a body needs something more than love to keep going...because sometimes, a body doesn't love their spouse/partner very much, maybe doesn't like them at all, and having that other something to hold onto while they sort themselves out can mean the difference between tempering the blade and shattering it.

I wish he'd listened. Some of us are not easy to love...or, perhaps, easy to love but not to live with. Try forcing a flame to burn always as it was in the first moment you saw it.

I think that loving another doesn't diminish the love one feels/felt for the first. I think sometimes one needs more than a single person can provide...and I don't refer only to sex. Sometimes, one needs spiritual nourishment, emotional nourishment, a love beyond touching. I think that trying to contain love in one box, one bag, one relationship is like trying to grasp a handful of water - the tighter you squeeze, the less you get and the more you find flowing away.

How sad is it that petty jealousies would interfere with that craved for completion? Is it love that cages the bird? Or is it love that flings wide the door and frees the spirit within, trusting that it will return of its own accord?

I could go on, but it's a wee rude to write an entire blog post in the comments section...not that I let a trifling thing like manners get in my way...snort...

Shade and Sweetwater,
K (who knows only too well that love, bound unto suffocation, can so easily turn to anger, resentment, and bitterness until it has burned itself out into a cold emptiness tasting of ash and scorched metal)(Why yes, I'm familiar with hyperbole, why do you ask?)

Cygnus MacLlyr said...

Kyddryn... I think i just fell in love again...

;D

Feel free to write a 'post' here anytime-- with words as potent as yours, I'll give ya a password and welcome guest articles! HA!

Words have won me to all three of my loves.
Hyperbole away, Pretty Flower...

Everything you said, HONESTLY, I synch with; just the verbiage didn't quite so beautifully flow from a Swan's bill (or beak, or.. whatever the heck these lips be in bird-speak!!).

A million thanks for your... visit; for your words, Lady K..

Slainte!

C.

Cygnus MacLlyr said...

OK, KYDD...
I just reread the comment. I EXPERIENCED the comment. I was and AM the thing...
We can remove all doubt. Cygnus is DEFINITELY in love again.

Jess (Ozark Momma) said...

Kyddryn said it best for me. Some of us are not easy to love...and I too wish the damn fool had listened to much the same comment I made just days before the vows.

Call it what you will...a cop out, rubbish, etc. I do still love the man but not the way I used to love him. It is a friendship type love and it's worse because his is more. I feel selfish for holding onto something that doesn't affect me the way that it used to. Which is worse? Keeping up pretenses or keeping him from something/someone that would be a better person for him?

Those of us that are hard to love find it harder still to love I think. It is because we are more than just emotional beings...once again like Kyddryn said. It is emotion, intellect, spiritual and physical tied into one. Fail to meet one and you've failed to hold us. It isn't horrible, it is who we are...there are far more of us than most think.

Having yet to find another "one" that can do all of that which it requires to hold me in one place, I search. But is it fair to drag him along, knowing that....I don't know, I don't think so. But I feel that pressure to hold things together, not out of love...which is sad.

Cygnus MacLlyr said...

Ozark momma-- it IS difficult, being that BEING ( or one of more than is realized, as you said) that needs fulfillment-- SERIOUS, DEEP Soul-tickling fulfillment-- and only offered by the world those whom canna' offer all, yet give beyond our ability to return (to them)...

That Search...
One of those Zen Koans--riddles with no answer-- the harder we look, the more elusive. " A fistful of water.." indeed...

She, or THEY, have to be there, SOMEWHERE. They just GOTTA...

Alas-- THERE and HERE differ...

I'm going to lie down and cry now, and see you folks on the morrow...

Always a pleasure, O. Momma. Always.

Cyg.

Kyddryn said...

Oh, Ozark Momma, how keenly I feel and understand your words.

When the soul hungers, the heart falters, and why is it so wrong to seek blessed rain when one is parched? How did we come to this, this idea that one may love only one, and then it must be forever?

It's a fine notion, in stories, where people do not change, grow, become different beings in their lifetimes, but out here? In the world not on the pages? It's suffocating!

I don't like mushrooms. Some people do, but I don't. I don't think I can find all I need from one love. Some people can, but I cannot. We are all different, with differing wants and needs - so why is it that I can order a meal without mushrooms and no one bats an eye, but I cannot love more than one at a time without raising a ruckus??

Loving isn't owning. I DO wish more people could see that.

Shade and Sweetwater,
K (loving, compassionate, lost, and determined to muddle through somethow)(and who now has the Moody Blues song stuck in her head..."I know you're out there somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, I know I'll find you somehow...")(Well, she is a musician after all, and biound to have a song for any occasion)

Cygnus MacLlyr said...

Is she? a musician, I mean?
Hmm..

Here-- use my personal dagger...
:D

thanks Ladies...

Jess (Ozark Momma) said...

"Loving isn't owning. I DO wish more people could see that."

Precisely!

I personally think it is the evolution of the species, when we evolved to a slightly higher intelligence that allowed for safer childbirth and higher populations, that has caused the 'one love' phenomenon. At least the thought that more than one love is wrong.

When it became easier for people to find a mate that made them comfortable, they stopped thinking about possibilities. Even though the true love stories didn't come to bear until those early times, people still had the survival of the species thing ingrained in their brains...true love was a fairy tale and comfort was love.

The term 'soul mate' is used so ruthlessly now (ahem...eHarmony is a big culprit) that people think comfort and love are the same. It is not.

I am comfortable with my spouse, but I don't love him so implicitly that I cannot go on without him. As a matter of fact, we do best when we go our separate ways for any length of time. I have the same feelings toward my siblings...I love them, at arms length. It may be a fault of mine (I know it is) that I cannot love too deeply unless I am drawn in completely. Mind, body and soul.

I am perfectly normal (for the most part) in all other aspects of life...normal does cover a broad range after all. It is the emotion of love that really truly eludes, so one settles for comfort and calls it something else.

Cygnus MacLlyr said...

O.M.
Just got off the cellular unit with a friend.. a love.
One, as the conversation went, I could as easily do without as with.

Um, no.. not so easily. But I could do, and have, for a long while.

We agreed that space is needed-- that no ONE individual can ever meet the entire needs of another.

That "emotion of love"?
Gone. Turned, long ago...
To Love.

Nice.
Scary.
Comfortable.

Strange...

No 'fault', Momma.

I think too many truly settle for that comfort, versus the true, potential-filling real deal...

Woman in a Window said...

So many questions and were there answers? I looked. I must have missed them. (Here by way of Rachel's.)

Cygnus MacLlyr said...

Answers? Hey Woman In A Window-- you ever find there are, SHARE!! SHARE!!

Glad to have your visit-- and thankful to R.'s for 'referring' you...
Hope you visit again, Lady WITW!!