For the LOVE of... LOVE!!

As 2015 closes and everyone celebrates Christmas tomorrow, I am reminded of the years of pain every holiday season, and I can’t fake it anymore. I am no longer ashamed to say, I am not a fan of any holiday where people meet with family. Maybe that is why I like the summer time the best, there are no family holidays. Maybe I forget all the good times, and if that is the case I apologize, or maybe those good times are overshadowed by the pain and loneliness felt during each passing season. Even while surrounded by people and displaying a smile, there is an emptiness or hollow spot within me missing something that only my subconscious knows of… love.

I hate the word love. I use it, even though I probably shouldn’t. I would like to say I love my family, my friends, and my son. I mean, I even try to represent what I think it is supposed to mean to my son, but I can’t say that I know what “love” is supposed to feel like. The only love I know has abuse, pain, neglect, anger, lies, manipulation, and fear attached to it. Although as an adult I know they represent completely different emotions, yet I cannot hear the word love, without feeling all of the other emotions at the same time. After years of searching for what I thought was love, but only attracting more pain, I realized my brain chemistry has created this association after years and years of conditioning. It is a result of the brain’s chemicals that were fired during bouts of pain from those who ever uttered the words, “I love you,” that had now attached those feelings to that word. The world has taught me to not have too strong of any emotion in order to focus, make rational decisions, and survive to the next level. Numb is a great word to describe the emotional condition of where I live. I feel like I had learned my lessons, and love became an emotion I didn’t want to have anything to do with.

Now, I tell my son I love him, because I want him to at least understand what love is supposed to mean and represent, although to be utterly transparent, I don’t know if he feels the  emptiness behind those words. I try to attach the right meaning to the words for him, like hugs and kisses, and talks, and appreciation and approval, and hopefully he gets the right association.

So as families gather, and say I love you and miss you, then not talk to you for the next 12 months because life is just so busy to stay in touch with the people we “love,” right. I’m ok, I don’t need the false reassurance of “your love”. It just doesn’t fit well with how I make sense of things.
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Maybe this is too truthful for some, maybe others have no idea how someone could seem so cold, but there’s a few, or maybe just ONE, just ONE person that now knows that now knows they are not the only one, feeling kind of numb, during this season… and to them MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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