he person who loves you now, at this very moment in time, at this particular juncture in space, once loved someone else before you, and you have to be okay with that. You have to be okay with all the previous mouths they’ve kissed or put their tongues into, all the names they’ve pronounced dozens of times until they got them just right. You have to be okay with those things, and with the beds they’ve slept in that were not their own, with the hands they held and the bodies they explored, even the awkward first dates they went on filled with so much tension it couldn’t have been sliced even with a butcher knife.
Because the thing is, the person who loves you now was a different person entirely before they were with you. Every passageway hidden inside their body was lit differently; every corridor inside their brain was traveled by new thoughts. Their synapses were firing with another kind of love, a love unique to this person and their significant other. If all the different kinds of love in the world were bottled up in tiny vials like perfume or shots of alcohol, there would be millions. Billions, even. Trillions. Because what’s love for one person, is something else entirely to another. So the person who loves you now- they once held a bottle of another color, size, shape, you name it, in their hands, right over their heart.
But that doesn’t mean that you have to try to find this vial, wherever it’s residing currently, and smash it open till all the love pours out in a thick stream, just so you can fill yours with the same kind of love. It doesn’t mean that. In fact, it’s better if you don’t, because what the person who loves you now had with their previous lover can never be replicated. It would be wrong to steal a feeling like that and try to make it your own.
The body is basically a mosaic. Every inch of it- veins, lungs, liver, fingernails- is filled with different memories and experiences. It’s a collage of so many things. If you aren’t okay with the person who loves you now, loving someone else before you, then essentially you’re not okay with all the shards nestled beneath their skin that are made up of this previous lover. Essentially, you’re not okay with some of their pieces, and without those pieces, they wouldn’t be whole. You can’t be with a broken shell of a person, or a half skeleton, or a mosaic missing its most basic parts.
You have to learn to say yes to the entire person, not just the parts of them you wish were yours. The person you love now isn’t a computer chip whose electrical wiring and circuits can be deleted or removed at will. So treat them like every single shard and scar and word is necessary, because, well, it is.
And it can be so hard to lie awake at night while your partner is asleep, tracing the curves of their back and counting the names of their exes instead of sheep. If you’re looking for a cure for insomnia, that’s certainly not going to help. It’s difficult, yes, as difficult as crawling through a hurricane or pulling yourself from the wreckage of a splintered ship lost in the middle of the water, but you have to stop thinking about everyone who loved the person who now loves you, and who they loved before you. The past can’t be changed, only less thought of.
Besides, think of it this way- who you go home to at night, who you wake up to in the morning, who you hold like a tidal wave, who you’d rather lie next to than get up- they’re made up of everyone before them. They’re made up of all this previous love, all these different kinds of love, a multitude of different loves and first and last dates, a plethora of hugs and stargazings and the first time they were ever told or said “I love you.” With all that love buried deep within the basement of their heart, they’ve been taught how to be prepared for you. All their previous lovers were just preparing them for loving you. They’ve been taught so well, by some of the best teachers. It’s okay to be the recipient of someone else’s lesson. Remember that.
The person who loves you now, right now- who even as you read this might be touching your neck in that way they do, or smiling at you from across the room, or wishing they could bed you right then and there- they loved someone else before you. And you have to be okay with that, you do.
Because the fact that they love you now, despite loving someone else beforehand, means that you’re pretty damn special.
No comments:
Post a Comment