The Love You Had Still Counts
An Art Swap Collaboration Story: A Lesson Learned About Love
“I thought we’d be together forever, ya know?”
He’s lounging on the couch in his mopey state. It’s not the first (or even the tenth time) he’s said this. He’s been mourning the end of his first significant relationship for six months now. The sad puppy dog routine is getting old, in my opinion, but I try yet again to offer him words that might help him see the light.
“But just because you’re not together, that doesn’t mean what you had didn’t matter. Like, it was still real while it existed,” I reply.
“But we should’ve tried harder to make it work…Love takes work, right? We should’ve worked on it.” He’s reaching. He keeps replaying the end over and over in his head and he needs to get the fuck out of it.
What I really want to say is, “Look, SHE DUMPED YOU! She didn’t want to make it work, so stop torturing yourself!”
But that wouldn’t help him, I don’t think. Besides, I’d already said that various other ways in the past, and I’m not sure it’s what he wants or needs to hear right now.
So instead I say, “Maybe there’s something to be said for not working so hard? I mean, some things should just come easily.”
“I don’t know,” he loops back around to defeat, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to love anyone again.”
“You will. Love doesn’t need to be infinite! So, you loved Tessa for this chunk of time. And now it’s over,” I explain, moving my hands along in a timeline-like motion, “Then you’ll find someone else and fall in love for another chunk of time or maybe forever…but probably not…and that will end. But there will always be more people to love.”
“But…I guess I always thought true love should be forever…”
What a Sad. Fucking. Puppy. Dog. I can’t take it anymore. I can only be a consoling friend for so long. He needs a wake-up call.
“That’s such bullshit,” I say, “Think about it, that doesn’t make any sense at all! You think you can fall in love with someone at 25 years old and then at 35 or 45 or 55, still be in love in the exact same way? What if you both change, and you change in different ways and one day, you’re just not IN love anymore? Not like you used to be. The love you had still counts! It was still love.”
I’m frustrated now. I can’t ever tell if he’s just being naive or if his heartbreak is so deep and true it’s making him an idiot. But for a smart person, he’s really clueless about life and love. Forever? What is this forever nonsense?
“Maybe you’re right…” he says, “I don’t know…”
Clearly I have not convinced him he’ll get more chances to love.
“Didn’t you ever just feel like giving up on love?” he asks me.
“Well…” I think about it for a second, “Yeah!”
A resounding yes. I had, in fact, given up on love. Completely and entirely for a good chunk of time. I honestly had forgotten about the time period when I felt that way, and I didn’t realize maybe that’s how he was feeling now. But now I remembered a universal truth about breakups: they make you feel hopeless.
“…You’re right,” I laugh, “I totally fucking gave up on love…”
“But then at some point you were ready for it again?” he asks, like a glimmer of hope has been reignited.
“Yeah, exactly.” I think about my timeline, about how long I felt the hopeless feeling, “Give it another year. You’ll be fine.”
“A year?!”
“I hated love for about a year and a half. Then, one day, I didn’t. I thought I never wanted a normal relationship with just one person ever again. Like, I didn’t want to commit to a person and BE IN LOVE. But then you kinda slowly want to feel love again. You start to remember it’s nice to have someone. It’s nice to have your person, ya know?”
“Yeah,” he says, “that is nice.”
This piece was written as part of an Art Swap collaboration, featuring art by Oliver “Shiny” Blakemore.
I created the artwork featured in Jessica Jungton’s piece, Ten Thousand Postcards:
You can read about this collaboration and all five writer’s stories here: