We Are The Lucky Ones?

[darnaguen]

For the past two days (well, nights really as the bloody transition to winter time completely screwed up my sleeping pattern again) I've been mostly sitting at computer and watching videos like that from YouTube and wondering if I've been missing something essential in my life for having never truly been in love, having never been involved in any kind of romantic relationship.
I have loved, and that love has made me laugh and cry, desperate and elated. My friends, my pack, they mean the whole world to me. I've had crushes and been attracted to people, been fascinated with people and felt connected to them on various levels. But I don't think I've ever been in love. I don't know if it's because I just haven't met the right person so to speak, or because I haven't allowed myself to fall in love.
Maybe a bit of both.

Maybe I have missed some valuable lessons and experiences for having not pursued the chances that I've been given but I still think that it wouldn't have felt right. And before you accuse me of being silly and naïve for expecting my one true love, the knight in the shining armor, to one day come and sweep me off my feet, let me tell you I've pretty much given up hope on ever finding a soulmate.
But I would like to one day know what it feels like to love so fiercely that it breaks your heart, to kiss someone and mean it, to be able to give and receive affection without restraints, to trust enough to give yourself completely into someone else's hands. I wish I had the courage to try.

This is a subject I'd like to write more about, but right now I'm so dizzy and tired that I'm quite unable to form coherent thoughts, let alone write them down into understandable sentences. Maybe I'll edit this later.
(And gods, this song makes me cry.)

Comments

[starkku.livejournal.com]

Hmm.. Maybe I get stuck on the details, but I think that one's soulmate isn't necessarily the human you date / marry / have kids with. Or that you should do those things with him / her.

[darnaguen.livejournal.com]

I know, that sentence came out a bit wrong. As I said, I was deadly tired when I wrote the entry.
As a matter of fact I don't even believe there's only one possible soulmate for each person. But as for me the idea of soul love is the highest possible form of love (romantic or not) I can imagine... Yeah, who wouldn't want to experience something like that? *chuckle*

[audrah.livejournal.com]

I have a tendency to get caught up in the past and present, and in the thought that there are so many things I need to do in my life. As they say, you should live your life to the fullest and take all the opportunities presented, yaadiyaa.
Then again, we (both of us) are so very young. Yes, we could die tomorrow, but there's too many things to be done for you to be able to execute all your wishes within weeks, months, years. Sure, you can't just expect things to fall into your lap - you will actually have to make a bit of an effort when the chance presents itself. But I believe that if you genuinely want something to happen (ie fall in love), you will grab the opportunity when it presents itself and moreover, when you're ready.
And I don't think it's naive to wait for the 'right one'. I, personally, have never felt the need to experiment with people I haven't felt strongly for. It works for some of us, for the others not.
If you had made different choices in the past, had different experiences, you would not be the same person you are today.
And I agree with starkku. Waiting for the person who feels right for a romantic relationships does not necessarily mean soulmate.

I hope I'm making at least some sense, I often find it difficult to express my thoughts.

Ja hyvää myöhäistä syntymäpäivää. :)

[darnaguen.livejournal.com]

Thanks for contribution (and birthday wishes). :)
You have a fair point (although, as I said to starkku, that soulmate sentence came out a bit wrong). And it's not like I'm in a hurry or something. I know I'm still barely out of my teens, and have probably even had much more rich and fulfilling relationships than many other people my age. So I shouldn't complain. *chuckle*
So maybe I'll just settle for waiting for something to feel right and focus on something more mundane meanwhile.

[audrah.livejournal.com]

I feel the same - that I've had more fulfilling relationships than others may have had with their romantic ventures.

And my pleasure. I've often thought of replying to your posts since I find many things similar in us and many of your thoughts interesting and intriguing. However, as I said, I'm bad at expressing myself... And tend to ramble on...

[jupedog.livejournal.com]

Sad thing is that finding a True Love doesn't mean anything. I found mine, oh , so long ago, and she loved me, but still, world was against us with such a fierce strength that even my stubborness had to submit. Yes, I have been in love after that, so it's possible.

I've given you advice on this matter once or twice, I think. Still, just do as you feel. If you doubt your chances of finding a soulmate, just go with -a- feeling when it comes and see where it leads.

[darnaguen.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know. I have learned enough of love to know that sometimes, even most of the time, even the truest of loves doesn't last forever. Well, the feeling of love may last, but not the relationship. I know that and accept that. I'm not looking for 'forever'.
To quote one of my favourite fictional people (*wink*):

"We need to be reminded sometimes that a sunrise lasts but a few minutes. But its beauty can burn in our hearts eternally."

And I also know that sometimes the person is right but the time or circumstances are wrong. Sometimes the time or circumstances are right but the person is wrong. And so on.
And as I said in a previous entry, as nice the idea of true love conquering all obstacles, it's not a very realistic one.

[lumenlaulu.livejournal.com]

Love, my favourite subject.

I've been in love, so far three times, though I've never been in a relationship, and like you, I lack the feeling of being with my love. But it still has not altered the impact of love. The first love was still as painful and passionate and consuming for me as for everyone who actually dated their chosen ones, but my first kiss was from a boy, whom I did not love or even had a crush on. I guess many could say I'm missing something major here and not lived full, but I'm not that kind of person who could act against my true self and just try a relationship with someone. Only so few feel "right". All those men who ever wanted to date me and some who still want it - I never cared for and still don't, they're more like good friends, no passion towards them. It is tragedy of my life: I somehow fall in love with those who I can not have. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just fooling myself, that I'm just too afraid to let go and give into it and it is easier to love someone, who will always be a distance away from you...

But in the end I still have love. The feeling of love towards someone, and it can be so powerful and inspiring just by itself. Not to be able to share it does not mean it is somehow pointless and lost. Be true to yourself and live the way which feels right and in the end: we can not ever truly find or feel love until we have learned a way to love ourselves first.

[darnaguen.livejournal.com]

*nods thoughtfully*
These things are probably the most difficult to understand or define in the whole world. I mean, how can I even be sure if I have been in love or not? What does it exactly mean? I mean, there have been people who have made me blush violently and my knees go literally weak just by entering the same room, people I have felt a strong connection to from the second I saw them and who have haunted my dreams ever since. Is that being in love? Some would probably say yes, but I don't think it has anything to do with love. I know love. Love is unconditional and selfless, something higher. Oh well...
I guess I have the same problem as you: those who want me I can only see as friends and those who I might want are unavailable one way or another. First person I kissed? A friend of mine after her boyfriend dared me to. And the only other person in addition to her was a guy friend who was drunk and just randomly kissed me and I thought "What the hell, why not?". Not terribly romantic.
And I don't even really know if I would know how to be in a traditional monogamous relationship. Not that I would sleep around or anything, not my style at all, but I guess I just have a hard time with the idea of committing myself to loving only one person for the rest of my life. But on the other hand, there is also the "wolves mate for life" ideology that is deep in my backbone. Mating for life with no strings attached? That would be ideal. But finding such thing? Unlikely. *sigh*

[lumenlaulu.livejournal.com]

Modern society still expects us to have a traditional monogamous relationship and at the moment almost all of my friends have a relationship or are married. I'm the only loner, expect for a small circle of friends from university, who are interested more in studying and being free, than desperately trying to find someone to love. But I like my life just as it is.

I'd say there is many kinds of love and each of us have a different way to interpret or experience it and in the end only you can tell if you've been in love or not. And many confuse infatuation with love, or passion, but love is the only one in which even if you see all his/her faults and even if he sometimes makes you angry or frustrated, you still choose him in the end and accept him as he is.

[(Anonymous)]

Bloody woman, are you operating in my head now?:) Cause this is exactly the kind of stuff that has been going through my mind lately. And this topic in general has been bothering me for a long, long time. I have been in a relationship, which is my very first one, for three years now, and my boyfriend is undoubtedly the most important person in my life. I do not believe in love at the first sight but with some people you just have the connection, the mutual understanding, right from the beginning.

We were really good friends two years before we started dating, we gradually grew closer and closer, and this is how I would still describe our relationship first and foremost; best friends. And this is, in a way, how I guess I want my partner to be, my best friend and equal, connected and close to me but still a separate, independent person. Thought of living only for someone else or as some kind of a half of a couple, only perfect when united to the other half, is totally terrifying to me, and for some reason it seems like I just cannot do romance as it is tradionally seen. Even if I tried to. And that bothers me every now and then.

I mean, I love him deeply, but I have never experienced the mad, romantic, cant-help-falling-in-love let's-love-like-there-is-no-tomorrow moment. I guess I consider myself a somewhat passionate person on many levels, but still, ultimate closeness or intimacy for me does not have anything to do with being physically close or even around that person.

And just like you, I cannot say if it is because I cannot feel such thing or if I just do not let myself or because there has not been an opportunity to do so. And I really do not want to think that human emotions are some sort of a zero-sum game, but maybe one person just cannot cover whole range of emotions at the same time (this sounds really stupid, though, not to mention a a bit sad). But still, I could believe that for example you are able to experience and relate to other kinds of feelings, which other people could desperately long for.

But of course you would like to experience something that seems special to you and everybody else considers the most incredible feeling in the whole world, and so do I. Well, I do not really know what my point was suppose to be here (or if I got yours right), perhaps just to say that I can relate to how you feel and even after having taken the first step and letting yourself love someone, you can still feel like you are missing out on something. I have also thought about ideas presented above that perhaps the so-called "soul mate" is not the one with whom you can make it partner-wise, and I am not quite sure either. Blaah, life and love are so bloody hard no matter which way you look at them.

-Maarit

[darnaguen.livejournal.com]

Sorry. :D
You know, I have to say I really envy you. You seem to have the kind of relationship I've always wanted to have. I know I said I'd like to know what it feels like to be madly in love even once in my life, but first and foremost I'm looking for a mate to run with, to use wolf terms. A best friend and a lover, soulmate and companion. An equal, a sparring partner and comrade in arms. Someone who would be there to catch my fall just like I would be there to do the same to him.
I think I'll throw in yet another quote from the books I seem to love to quote nowadays, the protagonist describing his best friend and love:

"And finally there is Catti-Brie, wonderful and so full of life. Catti-Brie is the opposite side of the same coin to me, a different reasoning to reach the same conclusions. We are soulmates who see and judge different things in the world to arrive at the same place. Perhaps we thus validate each other. Perhaps seeing Catti-Brie arriving at the same place as myself, and knowing that she arrived there along a different road, tells me that I followed my heart truly. Is that it? Do I trust her more then I trust myself?"

Those two are my inspiration, being everything I described above. *chuckle*

[(Anonymous)]

Just a quick answer to your replies. Yeah, I think I have quite a similar take on love as you do. I mean I have also come across people who have made my head spin, palms sweat, who have somehow made me so insecure and vulnerable and haunted my dreams for a long time. But that is definetely not love for me. I guess some people would say exactly the opposite, that the so-called butterflies are the only real sign of love, but I could not trust them or build anything lasting on that kind of emotions. Which I guess sets me apart from many people in my life and bothers me sometimes.

And I am sort of a commitment-phobic too, but just like you, not because I would like to enjoy or experince life as a single or date other people. Sometimes I just need to be on my own, without any resposibilities towards anyone else, but still knowing that there is someone out there, who undestands me and loves me no matter what. Yeah, and I also know that it is quite a lot to ask.:)

-Maarit