Love is Freedom

“How can you tell me you are in love with someone and still be able to like someone new?” Was the question my best friend asked me last night during one of our many late night convos. The answer I gave him at the moment was brief and without much thought yet I stayed up till sunrise trying to find a way to express what I felt inside. 

Love is Freedom.

This is a phrase that is used often, but hardly ever practiced. Most relationships usually find themselves dealing with issues of possessiveness and jealousy. I am quite guilty of this. In fact, that was partly the reason to the demise of that situation in which my friend was asking me about. I admit it, I let my impatience and insecurities get the best of me, I am human, it happens. I had formed an attachment to this person, and had to go through the motions of regret, replaying things I could have said or done differently, feeling anxious and uneasy, and just simply missing him. However, I gave myself a time frame of how long I would allow this self-pity party to go on. I gave it two weeks, I felt it was a reasonable amount of time to indulge in all the ice creams and Oreo cookies that my heart desired, constantly call my friends and talk about how stupid I felt and how much I missed him, and drink tons of old fashions while I swiped my nights away on Tinder just to see who I matched with.

During those two weeks I took accountability for my actions, I also noted the things in that relationship that I did and did not like, and forgave myself for my mistakes. Why must I stay in a state of sadness in order to prove that my love is real? It felt as if he was questioning the validity of those words. Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare is a great novel that portrays a love so strong that Romeo takes his life when he thinks Juliet is dead, and in return, she does as well. But why couldn’t Romeo just taken the time to grieve and then moved on? Society places significance on the length of time that a person is in pain in order to justify and accept their feelings. The longer you cry, the more real the love was. But it shouldn’t be this way. Love should not be so painful, and yet it is and people make it that way.

Love is beautiful, love understands, love is pure, love is freedom. In love you will want your partner to grow and follow their dreams, you will want to be supportive, be there on the good days and on the bad days. We become possessive because of our own insecurities, we become scared to lose them and try to control the situation. Not realizing that it will push them away anyways. Loving someone means letting someone live his or her life freely. If you feel jealous or possessive than you need to stop and think, try to rationalize the situation and communicate in an effective matter. Trust me, it’s been a work in progress; I know it’s not easy. If you tried and it is still not working, then you have to cut your losses, something in the relationship is not working out for the both of you. Sometimes the timing is off or your partner may not reciprocate your emotions.

I do not love him any less than I did 3 weeks ago. I still miss him, I still think of him everyday, and I still pray for him and want nothing than for him to continue smiling and striving. But I love myself more; you should always love yourself more. I also want myself to smile and strive, how can I do that if I am sad about something that I can’t change? The love I have for myself is freedom, freedom from my negative emotions, freedom from wasting precious time living in the past, freedom to laugh and enjoy the beautiful colors that are forming in the sky as the sun rises.

So yes, I could be in love with someone and like someone new at the same time. Society romanticizes pain, but I wasted many years of my life in pain and I learned that the best way to heal from pain is to allow yourself to feel emotions for others. Being emotionally unavailable in order to protect yourself from getting hurt, is a disservice and you are actually hurting yourself more in the long run.

If you are going through something similar, give yourself a time frame to allow yourself to grieve and feel those negative emotions. Forgive yourself! But when that’s over, wash your face, dress up, and put your brightest smile on because life is full of adventures and you have a whole lot of love left in you to give to this world!

XOXO,

Paris

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