Giving up on Love?

I'm more cynical than usual lately.
It's maybe ironic, seeing as the theme behind my blog as everything to do with second chances.

Perhaps it's the transition period that I'm in, or perhaps it's the witnessing of challenging relationships, or perhaps it's the recognition that perfection doesn't actually exist...but I've found myself truly coming to terms with singleness for life. Let me rephrase that... not even 'coming to terms with', but there's more of a welcoming of it.

Whenever I get to this point, I remember the time an ex-boyfriend sent me Sanctus Real's 'Don't Give Up' and then I have it's chorus repeatedly etched in my mind.

Have I given up on love?

Maybe.
I told my mom the other day that it just wasn't going to happen. It was an attempt to prepare her for the possibility, but also there was a strange okay feeling attached to it.

Because while I can see that love exists all over, I think that maybe the love that I often think I want to exist might not (okay, it doesn't). You know... the type of love that's perfect and easy and filled with only good memories and great communication and comfortability and always thinking the other person is the most wonderful person in the world... a love of happily-ever-afters. A love that completes.

Unrealistic love.

I've felt like a little girl lately. A little girl who exists in the fantasy world of her someday prince coming and sweeping her away on a white horse to a realm where everything is magical and filled with awe. Only, I know better... and I know that's not how it works. But, rather than adjust to the realistic idea of what love actually does look like, I feel stubborn in it. I still want to believe in at least some of the fairy tale parts of love, but because I can't imagine them actually happening, I feel like I've given up.

Now, here's the complicated paradox of the matter: I don't actually want the 'unrealistic love'.
I can acknowledge that some of the most beautiful things, some of the deepest loves come out of working through the hard stuff together and of loving each other despite the imperfections and inadequacies.

I suppose I just think I want the Hollywood/Disney-fied version of love sometimes because of how simple and fulfilling it can appear. And when I'm faced with real relationships and real possibilities, I'm tempted to think that the unrealistic is actually better than reality...which then scares me away from reality. It lends itself to a thinking that something better is available and anything 'less than' is just me settling.

So I realize there's a balance.
And I realize it's more complex than all of this.

Maybe I just don't feel capable of real love. Maybe I don't feel capable of loving someone through all the junk. Maybe I feel too selfish, maybe I want too much. Maybe I want more than anyone is able to truly give. Maybe I somehow still think perfection is attainable.... or maybe I just have a double standard.

I guess what I'm realizing is that I'm impossible to please, which means that love seems pretty far out of the question.

And I guess, ultimately, what I'm realizing is that if it ever does happen, it'll truly be a miracle.

Because I'm crazy.
Truly crazy.
Crazy enough to give up on love while simultaneously hoping some strange balance of my fairy-tale notions and 'real' love can coexist.

I'm complicated.
I know...
I'm working through it.
And living life in the meantime...not so much 'waiting' for anything anymore.
I'm okay with it.

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