As intimate relationships slowly crack, crumble, and fall, changes dictate the reality of a couple's once-imagined everlasting love. Blame it on the face pace of society, the demise of passion. or any other cancerous threat to being together, people can and do fall out of love. Usually this slow slide culminates into a precipitous episode of un-forgiveness and transforms into an indifferent condition I call "Love in Compromise," -- very simply an aged. convenient compliance.
This indifference often leads to a union that shares benefits, not real passion, and that certainly exists to better accommodate day-to-day operations of a once-impassioned, deep love -- soul deep, uncompromising love and unfailing belief. I think a love often weakens and blends into mere friendship in these reciprocal modifications. (Strains of Tammy Wynette in the background.) Oh, we all go through changes in love. I know that better than my A-B-Cs. I just bemoan the loss of companionship intensity.
As Love in Compromise begins its unflattering osmosis, couples speak few and fewer words; true differences in each other's character expose each one's real and selfish selves; while old and established bits of romantic love metamorphosize and digest themselves. This process may be compared to a ever evolving reverse metamorphosis -- a change of fortune in which young, beautiful butterflies age into dependent caterpillars whose imaginal discs survive but transform the product -- the couple -- from a beautiful creation to an uglier, less satisfying, less sustainable relationship.
Insatiable relationships devour their own original, brightly burning and colorful composition to order to survive the years. Some last longer than others. I think all would admit to a certain altered and unflattering view of their mate by the age of seniority. What's left by then are basic imaginal beings composed of withering body parts bent on weathering their own adverse and unusual circumstances. We age; we become more and more like helpless larvae and more vulnerable to wondering why unions we establish exist with any hint of symbiosis. Selfish interests most certainly increase as great familiarity robs aging couples of their "magic" attraction.
A return to solitude for each partner in a relationship becomes "Love in Compromise." Call me unsentimental; however, Thanks to Robert Frost's valuable observance, we all learn that "gold" is nature's hardest color to sustain.
Nothing Gold Can Stay
As another wise man once said, “The history of the world, my sweet, is who gets eaten and who gets to eat.” That’s survival in a nutshell. It’s the act of continuing to live, usually when others fail. The Bee Gees may echo this history in their big hit "Staying Alive." And, author Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger, the winner of the Man Booker Prize, continues to expound this ruthless theme of natural law. Adiga says that history ...
Is those down below serving those up above;
The history of the world my sweet,
Is who gets eaten, and who gets to eat.
--Bertolt Brecht
In the big scheme of things, our stardust tarnishes and slowed settles back once more -- a re-transformative and withering creature covered deeply by the tangled forest of obscure humanity. If we are fortunate, a lover, a friend, or a confidante offers hope and companionship. Still, they (and us) may be close in physical distance; however, it's the damned loneliness and limited mobility that break so many couples apart. Add pride and the ravages of old age memory loss, and we understand how lovers become islands unto themselves, struggling to merely survive in long relationships without the human touch.
When the changes do occur, Lovers in Compromise seem to have no arms to reach out, preferring to totally give themselves to solitude and their own personal struggles. It's as if our valuable commodity of love transforms to survival mode and limited living. We overlook, discourage and ignore what we once considering our only saving graces. The strong especially seem to keep in their own lanes and speed around our outdated vehicles of sentiment.
I don't know what love is, nor do I claim to have experienced its total loss. The images and depictions of love in books, films, and discussions very often only serve to confuse me. I spend so much time lately thinking about lost opportunities and chances for betterment. I seem more and more to cling to old, impossible hopes and dreams. I wonder about my poor choices in life. And, I conclude, my idea of love has altered so much that any glimpse of technicolor is long past. I may feel this way partly from self-pity, yet, my "gold," I believe has very little to do with a new Eden -- more to do with independent living. I have fallen. I will continue to fall. Yet, I am just as determined to get back up before my "stay" on earth. I owe it to myself not to let another "eat me." I declare to control some measure of dignity before becoming someone's dinner.
Does compromise filled with change feel like weakness to you? Welcome to the club, brother or sister. Weak? Yes. Bruised? Yes. More and more unpredictable? Yes. However, I'm still standing, refusing to crawl for any person, no matter how close. I hope to get in one more good "whack" before the claws find me helpless. How I miss the steadfastness of old -- company with confident folks.
No comments:
Post a Comment