On feeling love again

..towards a planter boot 🌱🥾

Ellie turned around and told me I looked so dead inside.

I didn’t even have the energy to reply. I just smiled and continued to sit in silence to peoplewatch. We’d been sitting in silence together for the past 30 minutes. I could go on forever. Silence, my being desperately craved. I gave up on being any part chirpy.

Suddenly, as I looked at the cloud, life started to come back to me. That’s a strange expression, I know. But it’s almost like a door opened and I sensed some good water entering again. I was immersed in the world around me, again, no longer a third person drifting above and passing by.

And I just cried in silence. I hadn’t felt this way for months, since I broke up and graduated. I’ve been doing a good job at keeping myself healthy and social, but tbh, I was a bit dead inside for most of the time. I couldn’t enjoy conversations the way I did before, my listening skills just dropped. I couldn’t really just take my time with anything, even with myself. Everything seemed to go by in a blur. So when I finally recognized being alive again, I was overwhelmed with joy.

As I walked, I noticed a planter in the shape of a boot. It looked funny. As I pointed it out I started crying too. I could finally notice it, because my being is finally here. A rush of intense love washes over me. I love this pot, the kind of pure love that genuinely wishes the best for it, whatever it takes form of, whether I’m in its life or not. But not just for the planter, I felt love overpouring out of me, and I just cried like that on the way back, with Ellie walking silently next to me, confused over what brought me from laughter to crying in a snap.

The night before, I cried too, after reading Esther’s Be a human. She talked about feeling lots of love for her ex, regardless of whether she’s in her life or not. I cried because it made me accept the love that I have for my ex too.

That morning, I was doing metta meditation, a type where you simply wish all beings to be happy, liberated, and peaceful. My head was running like a fanatic and only stopped spinning when I finally thought about my ex. I just feel lots of love for him, and a single pure wish for him to be happy.

Even though my heart wished him to be happy and loved him, my brain was very confused. Just a few weeks ago, I was disgusted by a text he sent, and I still feel unsafe with contacting him in general. At times, I even felt superior to him, wondering why I could’ve ever liked that person. My ego was definitely relishing every sweet juice of that thought. Zero part of me wants him back in my life. I couldn’t reconcile it with the feeling of loving that I had. “Doesn’t love mean you stick together and work through everything? Am I justifying copping out by faking this love?”

But I felt what I felt - I still love him a lot. It’s the subtone kinda love that no matter if I put sour lemon or spicy pepper on it, it’s still there, humming at the back of my throat, quietly begging for my attention and acceptance. I finally let myself feel the love I have for this person, despite all the confusion around it. In letting myself go there, a lot flooded back too. I started to miss him again, something I hadn’t felt in months. The love came back with all the good and bad parts. It’s scary, to visit a part of you that was too painful your brain literally shut it entirely out. But I know that I can’t fully move on and let myself feel love, whether romantic or towards a planter boot, if I don’t let myself also feel all the mud and sticks of this flood.

What am I doing about it? I try to meditate daily. In meditating, I learned that thoughts are not my thoughts, sensations are not my sensations, and body is not my body. We don’t control what thoughts emerge on the canvas of our mind. We don’t control how our heart beats or how our belly digests. We don’t control what sensation arises. It’s terrifying, knowing that none of what I call mine is actually mine, aka having zero control over it. I’m trying to just look at that fact each day. So that whenever the feeling of missing or pain or loving floods in, I don’t try to explain why it’s there, grasping for childhood trauma or whatever to explain it. I want to simply allow my feelings to be, to wave at me at its own course, and see where it takes me.