for the scariest things are not half as enslaved

So one of my dearest friends is suffering from a spell of "being-sad-for-absolutely-no-reason" tonight and I decided to give us a writing assignment to kick him out of the mood and to force me to post an entry. The assignment is to write what you imagine being in love is like or if you have been in love what it felt like. I'll have to write about the former.

I have a lot of hopes for what I want being in love to be like. But at the same time I'm a realist, bordering on pessimist, so in reality I have more fears than I have hopes on the subject. A lot of what I imagine being in love to be like is built from an early age on fairy tales and idealistic media representations. As we all grow up, however, we obviously come to realize that they are fairy tales and idealistic representations for a reason - they are incredibly rare circumstances bordering on the impossible. Now that I'm out of my teen years and done pining over boys in plaid who claim to wear their hearts on their sleeves, I've come to reconcile the ideal with the plausible.

I imagine being in love is actually exactly like the way it is in Cinderella or Snow White. I believe that some moments you've got to be able to look at your significant other and think "Wow, I lucked out." It's got to be love at first sight. Love at the first moment you wake up next to them in the morning. Love at the first moment you come home to them after a long day. Love at the first moment you sit in complete silence with this other incomplete soul that needs you just as much as you need them - need them to need you, to complete you and to calm your impossible soul.

Fairy tales aren't lying, they just tell a marginal part of the story. Cinderella and her prince are very much in love, but that doesn't mean they don't fight like all hell breaks loose on a bad day. And that's part of being in love too. There's no way that being so dependent and enthralled by one another isn't ever going to lead to misunderstandings and hurt feelings. There's just too much invested for us not to feel vulnerable when we're in love. And when we're vulnerable, we're likely to lash out and recoil - we're only human. But part of being in love must necessarily be reaching out to that other person and seeing through their eyes. It must be like seeing yourself, for real, for the first time. Every limit and imperfection is being laid bare for the other to see, for you to confront, and that's tremendously frightening - which I also imagine being in love is.

I think it must take a lot out of someone to be in love. It probably drains everything out of you more than anything else. At the same time though, it must be immensely satisfying to have someone else fill all the empty parts of you, to know that you're not alone. I guess that's the reason why someone would give themselves up to be stripped naked and split open for another person. There's the hope that they will creep and crawl inside all the nooks and crannies, will accept even when they can't understand and will touch upon every blemish and see only perfections. When it happens -

My hopes will outweigh my fears.

and if you said what you want, I would laugh it off.

Every time I hear someone say that they know they are right because the bible tells them so, I feel the undying urge to run my fist through their face - and I never condone violence. Let's get this little thing straight: God did not write the bible. Men - who are every little bit capable of doing things that surely anyone of any religion or belief can agree are wrong and unjust - wrote the bible. Any passage you could use in that book to support any argument subjects your argument to every fault and imperfection that the men who wrote it are also subject to. When you appeal to the bible to support your stance on something, there is no one on this earth who can say indefinitely whether you are right or wrong. But the bottom line will always be this: the bible cannot now or ever be a guarantor of your correctness.