Dear Tristan: on falling in love

Dear Tristan,

Never apologize for loving someone. Never.

Even if you look like the fool. Even when you get hurt.

Years ago, when I was just a kid, I fell in love with my best friend. (I’m not talking about your dad – that came later.) The culture I lived in at the time said that this was not okay. That it was “wrong” to fall in love without a lot of boundaries in place (boundaries like planning to marry the person) to make it safe. These same people said that a seventeen-year-old girl couldn’t actually be in love, so instead it must just be my feminine “emotionalism.”

The sad thing was, I believed them and agreed with them. I hid my love from everyone – even myself. I convinced myself that “having feelings” was not the same as “love.” Those times when I saw things with more clarity, I quickly pushed it away. I didn’t want to do something wrong. Mostly, I didn’t want to lose the friendship that meant so much to me…and I knew that in the culture we both shared, “feelings” were a death sentence.

It turns out my friendship was doomed from day one. A boy and a girl – everyone knows that friendship, real friendship, isn’t possible. People were looking over our shoulder, judging every word, every action, every motive. Telling us both what we “should” and “should not” do.

There was so, so much fear. This, my first experience with the vast power of love, was wrought with fear. I want to somehow save you from that. I don’t know if I can – but I sure as hell am going to try.

Circumstances conspired to end our friendship. Of course it didn’t really end, because you can’t kill friendship that easily and we had a real one. But we were forbidden from talking to each other. I was told that this was for my own good. That it would “protect me from getting hurt.”

Here’s the thing about love. If you are afraid of it, and if you let that fear control you, you will be hurt deeper than you ever knew was possible…or you will hurt someone else in that same way.

I have never, before or since, been through anything as hurtful as that summer of eleven years ago. I have never cried so hard, or been so confused. I have never again put a cold blade against my wrist and imagined what it would be like to end the pain right then and there. Love can be painful even when circumstances are right; but when you are downright attacked, demonized, and berated just for the simple act of loving another human being (a wonderful, strong, deep human being) it can make you question everything about life, everything about yourself, everything about God.

That summer did all those things for me.

I was far more hurt by these people who were trying to “protect” me than I would have been if things had been allowed to naturally run their course. My heart was broken, but it was broken by people claiming to try to save my from heartbreak.

Many people are afraid of love. We try to control it, and we try to control others with it. We try to “guard our hearts” to keep ourselves from getting hurt by it, and we try to tell others to do the same.

I would much rather that you love with abandon. Yes, you will get hurt. That is a given. You may love someone who doesn’t love you back (I’ve done that too), or maybe someone who does love you but rejects you for reasons you can’t understand. I’ll say it again: you will get hurt. But the funny thing about love is, you will experience far, far more hurt if you try to avoid the hurt.

The other thing I regret from that time in my life is the way that I was ashamed of my love. I denied that it was there, instead of saying a brave and simple “Yes, I love him” when asked. Why should we be ashamed of such a pure emotion? And yet there are those who will try to shame you, to tell you that you are in the wrong just for feeling what you feel. I hope that you can be brave in the way that I was not, that you can look them in the eye and dare them to tell you that you shouldn’t love.

I’m not saying that we should treat every crush as lifelong love – I’ve had crushes too and that’s not what this was. A crush can feel like overwhelming emotion, like you would die if you couldn’t be with this person, but love….love is where you would lay down your life for someone. Love is where you can live without a person but you keep on loving them. As young as I was at the time, “my first love” was no crush. It was real. I know that now, now that I have lived a life of being in love as an adult, now that I know what love is.

I was hurt beyond recognition, and yet somehow that love and that hurt molded me into someone who knew how to love. When the time was right, my friendship with your dad became the deepest love I have ever known. But I don’t think I would have been able to love your dad if it weren’t for my first love and everything I learned in that story. Every moment has something to offer you, even the gut-wrenching painful ones.

Despite all that happened, I do not regret one moment spent loving. Neither should you.

Walk into the hurt with your face open
Be brave and tell the truth in the dark
Do not fear love.

love,
mama

other letters in this series:
on failing to live up to ideals
on curiosity
on intrinsic motivation (and why we won’t do sticker charts)
on disagreements and choosing a different path
on being open
you are not what you do
on perspective taking
on the most important thing
when the going gets hard

Daddy’s letters:

I love you
I’m sorry
Be Yourself
Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be
Be Powerful
Be…just be
Do it for you
On Rewards and Punishments
Choose Wisely