Boi Growing Up

“..baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me. No more.”

Tell me that song isn’t a classic.

But what is love? What is this abstractly defined and experienced state of being that so many people claim and so many people deny? How does it coerce the most extreme and unpredictable actions out of a person? Why does it give us such life?

Why does it hurt so bad?

While we were sitting in the car, my little brother, the youngest teen, asked me during our day trip out to Dave N Busters “Do you love me?” Of course I said yes, because I do. …he’s my little brother, I have to haha. He then proceeded to ask me the hardest question I ever had to answer, “why?” I put my hand on his head, pulled him over, and said this: “You absolutely get on my nerves, I spoil the shit out of you, you’re always in trouble, have such an attitude and never listen, but I love you so much.”

If that doesn’t perfectly depict love, then I don’t know what does.

I think love is wanting to be with someone with their flaws and imperfections, not in spite of them. You realize it’s those little negatives that come together to make a bigger positive. You can’t make that person more perfect in your eyes because they are already flawless to you. Love makes you surrender yourself completely and unconditionally. Love in and of itself is unconditional.

And that’s why it hurts.

You have no safeguards up like with other people. You don’t hide any of those skeletons in the closet you’re ashamed of. You act a complete fool with no inhibitions. You invest your full self and hope you don’t get burned. And if it happens, whether by being dumped by a boyfriend, or a brother hating you and not speaking to you, or a friend spilling your deepest secrets in an act of some arbitrary retaliation, you have no defenses.

Love causes you to give a potential enemy ammo to hit your soul and do critical damage.

But that’s why it gives you such life, such a glow, such euphoria.

That vulnerability is like the ultimate gamble. Such a rush to play and a bigger one when it pays out. When your love is returned, a bond is created. One that can only be broken from within, able to withstand all external forces. You and that special person have a little universe forged just for you two, full of magic and wonder. This is why we celebrate marriage, we applaud the secret handshakes, and we feel comfy in eachother’s clothes. Those are the little displays of affection and fondness. Outward signs of inward emotion.

The light inside that connects you both shines through to the exterior.

Love is both positive and negative. Good and pain. Pain and pleasure. It can lift you up higher than you have ever been. It can drop you into a deep depression that you see no hope of recovering from. Some of us live for it. Some of us run from it. It’s elusive, but always present. Someone tell me, what is love.

Til next time. Stay frosty.