Love is a Choice

When I was a child, my mum told me that the love we usually end up making a home with is one that feels familiar and safe, rather than one of all-consuming passion. I rejected this notion immediately — incurable romantic that I am — vowing I would never accept less than the latter. There’s no doubt I still stand by this, but now I understand what she meant. It took me a long time to realise the two need not be mutually exclusive.

With age, I am learning love is a choice. The reason my younger self denied this is because since childhood, biological and chemical reactions consistently gifted me with desires I had ‘no control over’. Every so often a girl would land meteorically in the centre of my life; a bright, burning sun I would suddenly find myself powerless to do anything but orbit around. Sometimes I wouldn’t even be able to place why, which was part of the charm. “There’s just something about her” I’d say, certain this was the only type of love worth having. Each time I became besotted it felt like something bigger than me, as though the universe was making a decision that was in my best interests to follow. I adored being swept up in the galactic trajectory of infatuation and considered the intensity of emotion that accompanied these encounters the highest state of being. I’d follow my appetite to its limit each and every time.

This was when I was still learning who I was and where I wanted to go. Of course, self-discovery is a never-ending process, but the younger we are, the more easily we are swayed whichever way Cupid wants. I was still sifting through my preferences and the feelings the female sex ignited in me were all part of the data collection.

Falling head over heels is a beautiful and inherent part of the human experience. The essence of that feeling is what life is all about. But the succumbing is still a choice. And the younger we are, the wider we generally believe our breadth of possibilities to be, therefore the lower our resistance to opportunity; as a result we are more perceptible to the art of allowing. I have always been this way inclined, believing the best things are found by pursuing your bliss to its full potential, wherever that may lead. The soul knows what it wants and will guide you straight to it if you submit. As a result, all my romances had been thrilling, absorbing adventures that seemed cherry-picked for me from above.

For the same reason, I was never a fan of the ‘slow burn’. I had heard about these kinds of love, those ‘I married my best friend ‘or ‘what I was looking for was right in front of me all along’ types. What a cop out, I thought. You can’t just decide to be romantically attracted to someone who has been there the whole time! Otherwise you would have liked them initially, surely? Looking to your left and deciding “You’ll do…” — that’s called settling!? It wasn’t until I had my first slow burn I realised this is not necessarily the way it happens. These encounters can be a whole new level of delicious, not devoid of the sought-after stomach seisms we tend to measure desire by either. If anything, the want is deeper, more thorough — the difference between your mother’s home-made soul food on the slow cooker and a microwave meal fling: hot on the surface, sure, but once that fades you find the core to be cold and nutritionally deficient.

Now, in my late twenties, I have sifted through enough life experience to know what I want, what I don’t want, the kind of love that is good for me and (in a broad sense) where I am headed. As we grow older, we become set in our ways and less likely to bend to every romantic whim lest it take us off our intended path. Youth teaches us that a basis of lust alone may lead to toxicity. Gold-mining becomes priority. We develop a ‘type’, that far more than physical attraction, requires qualities in line with our own values and those which will enhance our future. Location, finance, aspirations, love language etc. all become factors to hone our choices.

I used to misunderstand, in every circumstance, how anyone could fall in love but not pursue it. You may as well be dead, no? Now I empathise with the ‘risk factor’ associated, the belief you may have something to lose by developing certain love interests. There is a weighing up of options and an element of damage control. My most recent relationship was (I believed) the kind of irrevocable merging of two bodies and hearts that all the greats wrote about. We were both so sure we were for each other that we assumed it was a dead cert and neglected the toxic behaviours we had yet to release. If you believe in karmic soulmates, you will have heard they are given to you for emotional growth — yet the strength of the initial union can disillusion you into thinking there is no more growing to be done. This is it now, you can declare with relief — the one who will love me forever, flaws and all. Needless to say my relationship perished traumatically way before it needed to, had both of us been more appreciative of what we’d found.

After it ended I really took a long hard look at what was important to me in a partner. The answers surprised me. When everything holding you together externally is suddenly stripped from you, you are forced to analyse the glistening meat of yourself, the substance in the bones; you realise what you have taken for granted and the people you are still blessed to have in your life. What would happen if they were taken away, too? Have you acknowledged how fortunate you are? My epiphany was imminent. At a time when I was wobbling on my legs like Bambi, I lost all interest in meeting anyone new. I could no longer trust the staying power of any novelty. My perspective went through a dramatic shift: if I was to be intimate with anyone, I cared only for it to be someone who already knew me and whom I was comfortable fully being myself around without threat. A lover who was aware of my negatives but didn’t cast them like a shadow over my positives. What my mum told me would happen finally had. I wanted security above all else. The intimacy of comfort. Found myself yearning for company which had always been there.

Sometimes it turns out the people who have what you’re looking for are those who have been beside you all along.

It makes sense doesn’t it? Life happens while you are busy making other plans, and while we are searching for love, a sense of belonging, home… what do we think is organically being built around us day by day? It’s logical that the people you find remaining in the thick of it all are actually the ones most in alignment with you. They know how you need to be loved as they have survived in your life this long by doing so. It corresponds you’d be compatible. But it is only when looking at them with fresh eyes you realise this.

The combination of natural maturity and the establishment of my own risk factors taught me to hold reins on pursuit of some romantic connections I’d have liked to jump into head on, had I been a bit younger. And in instances where life required me to spend time with these individuals on a regular basis, I became accustomed to controlling the tide of my desire and holding my emotions at arm’s length in a healthy manner. I learnt to successfully put my impulses aside in order to get on (simply put, I grew up) and as a result often also grew to know, love and respect these individuals in further, organic ways by living alongside them. At times I’d even forget I was ever attracted to them. We’d argue, cry, annoy each other with our traits, offer genuine advice, work on projects together and drink each other’s secrets into the early hours. In this way, several bonds edged platonically deeper and actually came to hold more weight.

This can become all the more pleasing if, suddenly (as life can be funny like that) circumstances do a 180°, chemistry erupts again with a fresh vigour and romantic action becomes not only permissible but wild horses can no longer keep either of you from it. You may find a fully-formed relationship has bloomed over time without pressure, accompanied by a sense of calm. There are already love locks in place which have no hankering to be broken by either party. A feeling of protection and certainty knowing friendship came first pervades, and the consistent choice to put its maintenance before primal passion is at once more important.

As a result of experiencing this myself, I have discovered the joy in tasting full ambits of colour rather than just black and white. To allow love to blossom carefully and be content with what does not come to fruition. I have become more open-minded to the type of person I may find myself attracted to over time and this does not feel like settling at all — on the contrary it is brand new, refreshing and different to anything I have experienced before. Like sorbet cleansing a developed palate. My friend Alicia recently reminded me that a relationship is like a plant or a baby in that it needs to be consistently watered. I take pleasure in understanding that when loves like these find their way, as they often do, the decision to commit to each other is conscious. And this, I find, is a braver and somehow more beautiful endeavour. To choose to walk into love, rather than to fall.