If this hasn’t happened to you, you’ve at least known someone or read a book or something where it does happen: two people meet, instantly fall in love and then do something extreme, whether it’s dropping their whole lives and running away to Iceland together or simply getting married. Sounds totally romantic, I know. Or does it?
I flip flop about this one. I’ve been in that situation before. When I was younger, though equally as head strong as I am now, I fell, totally and completely, for a man 15 years older than I. After we dated for just three months, I sublet my totally amazing, really hard to find, apartment, moved in with him and started window shopping the engagement rings.
Everything was going well, for about a month, and then he attacked me. Physically. Though I can talk about it now, at the time my whole world literally fell apart. I felt unloved, I was homeless, and I had no trust in my feelings or instincts. I was a stranger to myself. It was sudden and it was intense.
I’ve been told that I should have been more discriminating and not so hasty in my decision. That could be. However, I made it out in one piece. And even if I could go back for a do over, I’m not sure that I’d do things any differently. I go from the heart, I always have, and I always will. That’s who I am. If I put a buffer on my heart I wouldn’t have experienced the emotions that I did; for better or worse.
I think that’s the reasoning that many leaping before looking lovers provide: you take the good with the bad. And never sacrifice the good just to save yourself from potential bad. Otherwise, you’ll end up an old, sad sack of middle-ground. And life is too short to not be extreme from time to time.
Having said that there are two sides to this coin. I’m all about following your heart to unexpected places. You’ll have some amazing adventures. But, and it’s a big but, there’s a big difference between being someone who habitually falls deeply in and out of love and changes his or her whole life around on a whim, and being someone who drops everything for one once in a lifetime whirlwind romance.
I’ve dubbed people like this “love-bleweeds”. Like tumbleweeds, they make a life out of rolling and tumbling around. They build up a relationship and a life with someone only to uproot it months later. Then they reconfigure themselves when the next one comes along. If they do this long enough, they’ll forget what it’s like to be calm and comfortable. Nor will they be able to exercise any follow through whatsoever.
If it makes some people happy to live like this then that’s all well and good. What isn’t okay is the mess they leave behind when they, once again, pull up stakes. When one sets up a life, others get pulled into that life; friends, coworkers, lovers, neighbors and pets. When the next “soulmate” comes along and they drop everything, they’re leaving a lot of people in their wake who are going to be missing them when they’re gone.
It’s too rare and too unspeakably joyful to fall in love in a fast and intense way to not do it when it comes along. If you’re lucky (and go around the block enough times), you’ll perchance learn how to protect the rest of your life when it does, without sacrificing any of the amazing feelings.
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