Screaming
I was in a play once, when I was about 12. The crucible. I was small and quiet, so I was the sick girl.
During our first run through, when I became possessed, I screamed. Eyes closed, arms flailing – I screamed and screamed. And when I opened my eyes, everyone was staring at me. Rehearsal had stopped.
I thought I was supposed to scream, I said.
You were, we just – weren’t expecting that.
It had snowed, deeply even for Boston, and Graham and I went out to walk along memorial drive.
No one was there, no cars were driving. They couldn’t. The next morning would be one of the few snow days I ever had at MIT.
We stood, alone, looking at Boston in the unnatural quiet. Then, I screamed. He covered his ears. It was so loud in the silence, it echoed – off what I don’t know – but it felt like the city. It felt like I was screaming loud enough for Boston to be screaming back at me.
Dave used to be upset that I never cried around him. He asked if he could make me cry, and I said I doubted it, but he could try.
So I let him cane me one day. I got naked, and lay on his bed with my butt in the air. He hit me in the same place over and over. After a while, I’d have a surge of anger every time he hit me. I wanted to swear. I wanted to stop him. But I didn’t. I didn’t make a noise – I hardly moved.
At some point Dave stopped. You’re covered in sweat he said. So I was. It was in still little beads, because I hadn’t been moving. When I sat up it ran down my body. But I never cried, and I never screamed. I wish I had.
Dave used to have a girlfriend at some point who used to cry a lot. Apparently if he spanked her a little too hard during sex, she’d cry. And I used to be so jealous of her. She was allowed to be this weak, pathetic human and he still loved her.
I’m so blocked up, I can’t even find out if someone would still love me if I was deeply pathetic. I have such a difficult time crying in front of people, you can’t even beat it out of me. Graham and Chris knew me when I was so fucked up I couldn’t hide it, but since then, I’ve been a lot more closed. And they had a tough time dealing with me.
I suppose to some degree I’ve been afraid. I’ve seen the effect my negative emotions can have on people, and it’s powerful and terrible. Like that time I screamed in the play, and opened my eyes to everyone staring at me. If I express myself completely, I suddenly wake to have ruined someone. I’ve had multiple boyfriends tell me “You’re not a terrible person, but you do terrible things.”
But no one ever does terrible things to me. No one breaks my heart. No one makes me cry.
No one stands up to me.
And it’s lonely.
Can you love someone who is deeply pathetic?
Do you really love someone if you don’t love them when they’re deeply pathetic?
Deeply pathetic to whom?
Is a person deeply pathetic if their lover doesn’t see them as such?–If their lover holds on to what they saw and see in that person even while that person is rejecting it? Can you love someone even while seeing them as pathetic, and fight to save them? or help them save themselves? What if you give up? What if you fight forever and lose? or win?
Is love something that is constant–something in your mind that never goes away? Or is it something that comes and goes? Does love change? Does it fade? Can it be distorted? Corrupted? Forgotten? Can someone doubt their love and lose it?–Can they regain it? Can one choose who to love, or why?
Can you love someone for just a moment?
Do you love a person as a whole, or do you love the sum of the parts that make up a person?–or how they make or made you feel? Do you love them for the series of moments you’re with them…and then let go? Or do you hold them with you in your heart and mind and love them unconditionally forever? What if you let go? Was it love? Who decides?
I think I can love someone for what I see in them. I think I can love someone for what I see in myself (or what I don’t). Can a person truly change–or are they the same person? Can what I see in someone change with time and experience?
I think I can love someone for who they are. I think I can love someone for who they’re trying to be. I think I can love someone for who I think they’re going to be, or who they’re not. If I don’t love you today, did I not love you at the start? at the end? Is there conditional love? You used to not accept the concept of unconditional love–has that changed?
You didn’t answer the question!
Lots of semantics up there. I just wanted to say that I liked this post, and not just because it mentions me. I’ve been crying a lot, recently, basically in front of everyone and anyone. The reason is that one of my cats was shot and killed while she was chasing turkeys around in the backyard. The love I felt and still feel for this cat will never go away. I cry at the pointlessness of the act, mostly, but also at the way that loss feels. It feels a lot like love does — butterflies in the pit of the stomach, insomnia, long nights and shitty meals. My point is that my loss makes me feel lonely, like love, like no one can understand, like I can’t put into words. It sucks to always be analyzing before feeling, like I can see you’re doing — the rationalization of why you should be sad, for example, instead of literally feeling sad. To think “I should be crying” instead of just crying. But it’s just as bad, sometimes, to feel — to feel without understanding, without knowing.
Elliot – yes.
to themselves, yes, yes, you can’t save anyone, to take credit for them helping themselves is arrogant, then you’re human, you’d die, you’d die.
no, possibly, always, it can, I don’t think so, then it’s not love, yes but not deeply, no, this assumed a different previous answer, no and no.
it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, you don’t let go, unconditional love is not adult love, then you stop loving them, yes, I do.
they can truly change, obviously.
it’s unrelated, well yes if you don’t love them at the end you don’t love them, yes, not really.
I just did, it was my first answer.
Zarvoc – I was sorry to hear about your cat. Chris told me.
I alternate between analyzing without feeling, feeling without analyzing. You can spin forever on it. I guess we do.
Or I do anyway. I don’t know what you do.
I hope something comes out of your cats death, but I don’t know what. Sense? Resolution? None of those seem to fit. But something. Also, hope to see you and Beth soon. Or soonish.
To be clear, I was really asking whether *you* can love someone who is deeply pathetic. Of course, there’s a difference between loving someone who believes themselves to be deeply pathetic, and loving someone who *you* believe is deeply pathetic. (and also perhaps loving yourself when you believe you’re deeply pathetic)
I would think that helping someone see themselves as something other than what they believe, is both possible and worthwhile–irrespective of the arrogance of claiming credit for the result. I suppose I was leaning towards the manifestations of love in the context of loving someone who doesn’t love themselves–the desire to help someone out of a situation they no longer want to be in by providing a differing perspective on their existence. Of course you can’t help someone who isn’t willing to be helped, or more likely, doesn’t yet understand how to help themselves (mind-shift, connecting frameworks, finding balance, etc).
I don’t understand what you mean by “unconditional love is not adult love”. Is adult love the one where you don’t love someone if they’re deeply pathetic?
I think we’re losing some meaning–time and change are two of the core pieces I was attempting to touch on in relation to your response to my question. (you seemed to be implying there had to be some continuity, consistency, or something else that defined love–eg, if you don’t love someone when they’re deeply pathetic then you never loved them in the first place)
I think you can choose who you love. I think you can decide what core characteristics you’re looking for before you make the leap into love, and whether they’re worth the risk. You then build on it. If you’re in love, it’s easy to push aside attributes that have the potential to make you upset. If someone viewing themselves as pathetic bothers you for a long enough time and you feel you aren’t getting anything out of the relationship, that love might fade (if it turned to anger/spite/resentment, then it wasn’t love?). Some people are fickle, impulsive, and resentful and it defines their lives–are they incapable of real love?
Then again, I believe people can love anyone and everyone. It’s just a matter of how you apply it, and how you choose to live your life–and what lessons you pick up along the way that allow you to harness that love. I think love is more flexible than people give it credit for. Or maybe it’s the people that are flexible?
What is love, oh baby don’t hurt me
*head bob*