Falling in Love

Since when isn’t falling a bad idea? Knees get bruised. Shins scraped. Foreheads bandaged.

And hearts broken.

Falling in love creates the myth that another will make me happy. Which of course no one else can do. No one in their right mind would sign up for that job. It’s a thankless job. If I change enough, will you be happy? Is enough even possible? Of course, not.

Falling love shows us what self-love is like. Because in that ecstatic state of falling in love we fantasize about being whole again. That’s what the other has done. Has shown us what happy looks like. Happy is whole again. Happy is recovering what was given up to conform, to survive. Whole again means not needing another to make me happy. The missing parts are restored. The sense of a void is filled. Not by another but by myself. Never to be lost again. Another can go and it’s still there. I do that myself. It’s my self-love. It’s my swelling joy when embracing inherent goodness.