I’m on a train ride to New Haven and staring out the window somewhere in between Hartford and Berlin; something has caught my eye.
As I pass between the two towns, I see many buildings tattooed in graffiti. Some of them are names, some are drawings and a lot of them are words that probably have meaning to somebody, but that hold no meaning to me. One building in particular holds a message that I pass by everyday:
“I begged for Sarah’s love.”
I don’t know who wrote the message. I don’t know who Sarah is. I don’t know the history that they have or once had. As I realize that I am on an involuntary journey of self rediscovery, I find myself looking at that sentence differently. I’m not putting myself in the shoes of the artist, but rather in the shoes of Sarah.
I can’t necessarily relate to the artist. There hasn’t truly been a time when I found myself begging for someone’s love. I think that it's because of a preconceived notion that having to fight for someone’s love means that they never loved you enough to begin with. But it made me question whether or not I have made someone feel as if they’ve had to fight for mine.
This message really struck me because I now wonder why I'm loved as much as I am. What is it about me that may make someone feel the need to “fight” for my love, my time and my affection? I’ve felt so stuck knowing that in someone’s life, I may be their Sarah. There’s someone who can feel the need to write “I begged for Sweeden’s love.”
I don’t take pride in saying that.
This message, graffitied onto a wall, on a random building, has caused me to look back at my life these past couple years and reflect on the amount of heartbreak and tears I’ve brought upon the number of people that really care about me. Even when I was able to talk through it with them, I still carry the words they said and the hurt they felt with me everyday.
It’s not easy for me to hear and understand that someone believes I don’t reach out enough, that I don’t make enough effort to show my love and appreciation for them or hearing that I make them feel like they don’t mean anything to me. That was never my intention. I think the overall problem was that I lacked intention.
I want to be more intentional in the way I show my love for the people around me. I want the people that I care about to feel cared for. I don’t want them to question my love for them. But I don’t always know how I can be more intentional.
Does being intentional mean that I’m calling them everyday, spending more time with them, checking in more often and finding different ways to show my appreciation? Is that the bare minimum? For me, wanting to love someone better compared to knowing how to love someone better are two very different things.
From the time since I wrote my last piece, I find myself asking so many questions in regard to love and loving others. I’ve actually found it quite difficult to compose and organize all of my thoughts and questions. What I’ve learned so far is that I don’t have the answers to any of them, I don’t even know if I’m asking the right questions.
When thinking about love, I found myself asking: is love transactional?
This can be in any sense, literally or metaphorically. Does someone give a part of themselves to you and expect to receive an equal part of you in order to feel mutually loved? How might or might not this apply to ‘unconditional love.’
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines love as “a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties.” Wikipedia defines the term unconditional love as caring for someone deeply and selflessly, with no strings attached and no expectation of anything in return. But, if unconditional love means that there are no expectations, then what happens if someone begins to feel like they aren’t receiving enough love in return? Can unconditional love end? If it ends, doesn’t that mean there were conditions? I could just be overthinking this.
Another question I beat myself up about is, how can I become more intentional in the ways that I show love to the people I care about? Am I missing the bare minimum? Should I make my efforts more noticeable instead of assuming they already know my appreciation for them? This is something I’m still trying to figure out…
I also think about love languages and whether or not I even have one. From my knowledge, there are five love languages: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch. Out of those five, I don't know if I can truly relate to a single one.
I could be looking at this love thing too literally. I don't think that love necessarily fits neatly into one out of the five categories. But, when others can confidently identify their category, I wonder why I haven’t figured out what mine is.
The last question I ask myself is why am I loved? This question keeps me up at night because I don't think I have a standout trait that would make me any more lovable than the next person. For some, I could be funny, kind, relatable, empathetic, authentic, self aware, accepting and maybe even thoughtful. But you could find those qualities in anyone. Out of the 8.3 billion people that inhabit this planet, all of us have to carry at least one of those traits. So what makes me any different?
When I think of how I’ve acquired some of my closest friends, it was never the case where I had pursued the friendship first. I believe that almost every time, I was the person who kept to themself and my friend was the one who found interest in me. Being told that I looked like an interesting person to talk to always made me wonder what exactly made me look interesting. What were they seeing in me that I couldn’t see in myself? Especially through my RBF. And this is what I struggle with.
I know I’m loved. I’ve seen it, I’ve experienced it and I felt it. Hell, I’ve had people fight for my attention, affection and presence. And yet I still can’t understand why.
I know I’m not the same person that I was a few years ago or truly at any point in my life before that. I’ve experienced so much change in drastic ways, even in ways I didn't want. That means I must’ve changed the way I love people in my life, right? I probably loved differently in the past because I was also different then.
Maybe my love has changed without realizing it. Maybe the people around me have changed too. Maybe all of this is true or not. I guess this explains why relationships are so complicated.
You're not going to love a person in the same exact way forever, how could you when you, yourself, aren’t the same exact person forever. We’re constantly changing. And life seems to be about figuring out changes in the many aspects of our lives while we are still figuring out who we are.
This idea is an essential part of The Almost College Dropout Column. I believe that almost dropping out of college is much more than academics. It’s compiled with college life and experiences where you are learning to balance your personal life, school, work, relationships and your social life all while you're figuring out the type of person you want to be after you graduate. Figuring out who you are requires asking questions that you don't have the answers to.
As I try to figure out loving intentionally, I comfort myself in the fact that I can’t be the only person who has thought this. I can’t be the only person who questioned whether they’d given enough love. And I’m not the only person who has unintentionally made someone feel unloved. Maybe someone who reads this may not feel as alone in their thoughts anymore.
Maybe there’s someone right now who is sitting on a train, looking out the window. They might have seen a message somewhere that made them wonder who they are, why they’re loved and ask themselves if anyone has fought for their love. Thinking that someone they know might have said,
”I begged for Sarah’s love.”
Comments