Elastic

 

“If love’s elastic, then were we born to test it’s reach?”

 

At the age of 18...and also at 17 and 19, 20 and 21...I thought that love was elastic. I thought loving anyone meant seeing how far you were willing to let them push you until you broke. I thought it was letting them test how far away from you they could pull until you came running after them. I thought, in the simplest way...that it was measured by how far you were willing to stretch just to be able to reach them.

For far too long, I didn’t understand that my assumption was only half correct. Now at 22, I can see that love IS in fact elastic. Just not in the way I once thought. Loving someone requires great care, consideration and responsibility. And while it does require you to stretch...it shouldn’t be painful.

You stretch to see how much support you’re capable of giving someone. You stretch to see how far you’re both willing to go to help the other succeed. To see how hard you’re willing to work...together. And to see the lengths you would gladly reach to, just to show them your appreciation.

There’s a documentary from the early 80’s about the amazing and eccentric, Eartha Kitt. In one part of the film, Eartha is asked if she’s “willing to compromise, within a relationship”. She answers the question as if she’s offended, saying  “To compromise? What is compromising? Compromising for WHAT? Compromising for what REASON?”

Her interviewer proceeds by asking “If a man came into your life, wouldn’t you want to compromise?” To which she responds to with an almost wicked laugh, calls him stupid and challenges him to think about that question again.

She goes on to explain that “A relationship is a relationship that has to be EARNED. Not to compromise for…” and passionately adds that “There’s nothing more beautiful than falling in love. But falling in love for the right reasons. Falling in love for the right purpose. Falling in love.” She begs the question “When you fall in love...what is there to compromise about?”

The way that this woman is so confident in challenging the notion that women are expected to compromise in order to gain and receive love, is inspiring to me. I think that human beings as a whole tend to get wrapped up in the idea of “getting” someone to fall in love with us. We stretch ourselves to the limit chasing after a person, or the idea of a person, all for a fleeting moment of feeling wanted and feeling needed.

We, as women and men alike, “compromise” by giving up important parts of ourselves, lowering our expectations and accepting less than what we deserve just so that we can “belong” to someone. The act of compromising is often defined as “accepting standards that are lower than desirable.” So Eartha is wise in saying that it ISN’T compromising when you’re in love with the right person, for the right reasons.
 

Love, whether it’s platonic, romantic or familial isn’t about getting...it’s about sharing. As Ms. Kitt so elegantly puts it, “I fall in love with myself and I want someone to share it with me. I want someone to share me, with me.”

Love does not hurt. Love is not painful. It’s the absence or loss of love that causes pain. What hurts us in any type of relationship is when the love we have does match up to our expectations or fulfill our desires. What hurts is spreading yourself thin and stretching to reach someone who continually pulls away.

However, love IS elastic. It stretches limitlessly through time and space. It withstands criticism and crisis. It grows and evolves between the people who are lucky enough to share it with each other. And it gives us a reason to wake up each morning.

The tricky part though, is finding someone who loves and appreciates you for you. Someone who doesn’t want to change you and thinks that you are more than enough, just the way you are. It’s finding the person that you don’t feel like you’re compromising for.

I’ve been told that you should fall in love with someone who doesn’t make you feel like love is hard. And while I understood what was meant by that, I couldn’t process it fully for myself until recently.

Love is easy when it’s right.

 

 

Photos by Freddy Marschall
(@freddymarschall)

 

 

Behind Scenes Video by Eddie Velez-Medero

(@___eddie_)