"[...]
The fact is, I had become addicted to David (in my defense, he had fostered this, being
something of a “man-fatale”), and now that his attention was wavering, I was suffering the
easily foreseeable consequences. Addiction is the hallmark of every infatuation-based love
story. It all begins when the object of your adoration bestows upon you a heady, hallucinogenic
dose of something you never even dared to admit that you wanted—an emotional speedball,
perhaps, of thunderous love and roiling excitement. Soon you start craving that intense
attention, with the hungry obsession of any junkie. When the drug is withheld, you promptly
turn sick, crazy and depleted (not to mention resentful of the dealer who encouraged this addiction
in the first place but who now refuses to pony up the good stuff anymore—despite the
fact that you know he has it hidden somewhere, goddamn it, because he used to give it to you
for free). Next stage finds you skinny and shaking in a corner, certain only that you would sell
your soul or rob your neighbors just to have that thing even one more time. Meanwhile, the
object of your adoration has now become repulsed by you. He looks at you like you’re
someone he’s never met before, much less someone he once loved with high passion. The
irony is, you can hardly blame him. I mean, check yourself out. You’re a pathetic mess, unrecognizable
even to your own eyes.
So that’s it. You have now reached infatuation’s final destination—the complete and merciless
devaluation of self.
The fact that I can even write calmly about this today is mighty evidence of time’s healing
powers, because I didn’t take it well as it was happening. To be losing David right after the
failure of my marriage, and right after the terrorizing of my city, and right during the worst ugliness
of divorce (a life experience my friend Brian has compared to “having a really bad car
accident every single day for about two years”) . . . well, this was simply too much.
David and I continued to have our bouts of fun and compatibility during the days, but at
night, in his bed, I became the only survivor of a nuclear winter as he visibly retreated from
me, more every day, as though I were infectious. I came to fear nighttime like it was a torturer’s
cellar. I would lie there beside David’s beautiful, inaccessible sleeping body and I
would spin into a panic of loneliness and meticulously detailed suicidal thoughts. Every part of
my body pained me. I felt like I was some kind of primitive springloaded machine, placed under
far more tension than it had ever been built to sustain, about to blast apart at great danger
to anyone standing nearby. I imagined my body parts flying off my torso in order to escape
the volcanic core of unhappiness that had become: me. Most mornings, David would wake to
find me sleeping fitfully on the floor beside his bed, huddled on a pile of bathroom towels, like
a dog.
“What happened now?” he would ask—another man thoroughly exhausted by me.
I think I lost something like thirty pounds during that time.
Eat, Pray, Love"
GILBERT, Elizabeth. Eat, Pray and Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, 2007, 30:32.
Addiction to someone happens all the time, every day, to all kinds of people. It'd be great if we knew when something like this is going to happen to us, but life isn't fair, so isn't love.
This passage, part of Elizabeth Gilbert's book, "Eat, Pray and Love", describes exactly how the exaggerate adoration of someone can be destructive to a relationship. Who hasn't ever suffered for loving someone of for being loved, may cast the first stone...
I certainly have loved someone so much that I made our relationship impossible to keep its course, just like I've been loved so deeply that I couldn't stand it.
Why does everything about the human race have to be so damn complicated!? That's an answer I'm unable to give.
However, I can say that the solution for this human paradox might be related to a single word: balance.
The journey towards the inner balance is what Elizabeth describes in her book, which is very interesting.
Why do love and balance have to stick together? Everybody tends on having a feeling for someone based on expectations where that person should respond to that feeling in the same way. So, you see, to have a reciprocal relationship with someone is the same as having a balanced relationship. Do you agree? The thing is, how do you know when someone is going to respond to your actions or feelings the way you're expecting? You never, ever, know. That's why creating expectations is so bad.
So, what is the best way to find or to create balance in a relationship? Honestly, I have no idea. But I know that creating expectations on someone else's actions is definitely the worst way.
Perhaps, releasing yourself from any kind of expectation is a fine way to begin. When you don't expect anything from someone you don't smother the person, letting her free to feel whatever she feels and in the way she wants to do it. You give your love the way it is, and you don't care if the person feels the same way about you, as long as she feels something. Feeling is what matters the most. You're a person who's found your balance and you do not need anything else to feel complete. You must not depend on anyone to be happy, therefore you should NEVER put your happiness on someone else's shoulder. If someone wants to make you happy, then, it's one thing.. but if you want to force someone to own your happiness, then, you're throwing your relationship in the garbage can... Trust me.
Just let it be. Love finds its way. ALWAYS!
If you ever wish to find balance in something, you should definitely start finding it within yourself. It always goes from the inside to the outside... Think about it.
Melina Menezes
