True Love Ain't Nothin' Like This

I wanted to write something poetic about it being better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, but in my case, that wouldn't quite ring true. Damaged people who don't love themselves can not truly love others. They can feel infatuation, obsession, what passes for love, but what they think is love isn't really love.

And that's the truth about me and Brown.

At the time, he would have sworn he loved me, and I would have sworn I loved him. And we both would have meant it – fervently.

But the evidence wasn't in his favor, nor was it in mine.

Love doesn't disappoint, take for granted, verbally abuse and deliberately dupe another person. Because that's irritating, disrespectful and ultimately devastating.

Nor does love cling so tightly to a fantasy and a dream of the future that it completely dismisses another person's reality. Because that's unrealistic, disrespectful and ultimately life-strangling.

In lying and breaking promises to me continually, Brown proved he did not love me.

In refusing to acknowledge, understand and accept that Brown absolutely, positively did not want more children, I proved I did not love him.

We both experienced love as a noun: an indescribably good feeling, the object of the verb making.

We didn't experience love as a verb, with all the selflessness that it entails. Brown didn't love me enough to show up, to support my dreams and aspirations, to want what was truly in my best interests. I didn't love Brown enough to be spacious, to let him be him, to hear what was always being said under the surface.

We both did the best we could, based on who we were at the time, and we both called it love.

Then when sugar-sweet love turned to vinegar, we both fled.

I still don't know what true love is, but I definitely know a whole lot more about what it's not. And that's a good lesson and a good start.

(Brown Diaries Parts 1-18: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | Lessons Learned Part 2 of 3: 1 2 3)

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