You know what? Sometimes you just don't know. There's a man out there--who's currently being an idiot, but he's been one before, so we'll glide on by--who I call my brother. Confuses the hell out of my family when I do, but I really think of him that way. In all functional things, he is my brother, he is the brother of my soul, I love him that much. But it was a solid year of knowing him, spending nearly every day around him, talking, laughing, joking with him, before I looked up one day, and said--this is a quote--"You're here."
"Yeah," he said.
"How long have you been here?"
"About a year," he said, and looked at me funny. And I said okay, and we went on.
I don't always get why people want to be my friend, why people like me, why people hang with me. To my way of looking at the world, I am bitter, resentful, bitchy, insecure, a bundle of nerves, and a mass of contradictions. I don't think that's the magic key to good friendships, or good relationships. But I have friends, and good ones. I have people I love in my life, people who love me. It works, in its own bass-ackwards way, and some days, I wouldn't change anything. (Well, Cat's legs could work, like ANY time now, but...that's a separate rant.)
You don't always 'just know'. Sometimes it takes serious thought. Sometimes it takes years of reflection. But here's the best description I ever found of what being in love is (paraphrased, because I don't have the original work):
A man in a story was asked if he was in love. He said he did not know, because he had nothing to compare it to. But he told the woman asking that the thought of her filled him, every waking hour, every hour of dreaming at night. Every time he saw something, or heard something, that was of interest, he said, I shall tell that to her, because he wanted her to share those parts of his life when she was not with him. She lived in his soul like a household spirit, he said, and he could not think of a life without her.
Hey. Right there? That's a pretty good description of the process. If you'd rather be with them than be apart--if you're hoarding up cool things to tell them, and you just can't wait--if something in you uncurls and relaxes when you see them at last--yeah, that's probably love. Or at least close kin.
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Date: 2005-02-15 07:43 pm (UTC)"Yeah," he said.
"How long have you been here?"
"About a year," he said, and looked at me funny. And I said okay, and we went on.
I don't always get why people want to be my friend, why people like me, why people hang with me. To my way of looking at the world, I am bitter, resentful, bitchy, insecure, a bundle of nerves, and a mass of contradictions. I don't think that's the magic key to good friendships, or good relationships. But I have friends, and good ones. I have people I love in my life, people who love me. It works, in its own bass-ackwards way, and some days, I wouldn't change anything. (Well, Cat's legs could work, like ANY time now, but...that's a separate rant.)
You don't always 'just know'. Sometimes it takes serious thought. Sometimes it takes years of reflection. But here's the best description I ever found of what being in love is (paraphrased, because I don't have the original work):
A man in a story was asked if he was in love. He said he did not know, because he had nothing to compare it to. But he told the woman asking that the thought of her filled him, every waking hour, every hour of dreaming at night. Every time he saw something, or heard something, that was of interest, he said, I shall tell that to her, because he wanted her to share those parts of his life when she was not with him. She lived in his soul like a household spirit, he said, and he could not think of a life without her.
Hey. Right there? That's a pretty good description of the process. If you'd rather be with them than be apart--if you're hoarding up cool things to tell them, and you just can't wait--if something in you uncurls and relaxes when you see them at last--yeah, that's probably love. Or at least close kin.