Unfurling the Banner

     I have been taught that love should be quiet, and a private affair. 

     In the culture I grew up, love is idealized and commercialized. No matter if it is filial, parental, romantic or the love between friends: all were declared as this high ideal which was everywhere. But in its idealization it could not be found anywhere any more. If one lowered their eyes and took a hard look around, it seemed as if love - especially romantic love - was just that: an ideal. Something which was to be aspired, but not achievable.

     I learned early that love was something private, like religion. People who were outwardly religious were as strange and repulsive as people who loved too openly. As kids, we would point at couples kissing and yell "ewww!", as if it was something disgusting. But did we not already encounter στοργή, Storge? The love of a parent to their child? Or φιλία, Philia, the love one develops towards someone they like, without necessarily desiring them sexually?

     I am aware that many of us might not have encountered one or even both of the two, and my heart is bleeding profusely for those of us. I hope that you will find healing, and that you will find these kinds of love eventually.

     One way or another, I learned early that love was always conditional, was always bound to a complex framework of relationships and what you could do to serve the other. Love was given, but also, love had to be earned. In the context of my family and my many siblings, one had to shine to be seen. It often felt as if we were in constant competition with each other - to be unique and to be uniquely lovable. The pressure was in early, and the older we got, the more it mounted. 

     I have written in other places how much I struggle with the feelings of affection towards other people - how terrible the push and pull of normal interactions can be on me. How much my body reacts from the simple act of being touched physically, and how much I crave and shy away from the act of having my soul touched. And when it happens, I do not wish to show it.

    It turns into a private affair. It turns into something I take, and enshrine deep inside of me. Mine, I say. Mine. Do not look at it, do not touch it. If you are not the one this love is connected to, then fuck off. You have no say in it, and I will not have you ruin it by opening your mouth. Keep your criticism to yourself. 

    And I turn inside, turn to my shrine. Here you will be safe, I will say to this love. Here, I can look at you all day long and warm myself by your glow. Nobody needs to know that you are here, not even the person you are connected to. If someone else shows interest in the person you are connected to, I can still keep you, can still keep up the illusion that this love still exists - because for me, it does. I remember that I told this to the first person I fell in love with: "I love you, but this does not need to concern you. Move on, if you wish". They did, and I forced myself to be okay with it.

     Always being in concurrence with myself and my siblings, I could not take it when someone was loving the same person I did. I immediately pulled out, pulled back. A way of protecting myself and my heart, because in my mind I knew myself to be deeply unloveable. Who would choose me? My siblings were smarter, better looking, better sweet talkers. I was the weirdo, the black sheep. When I fell in love, I kept it a guarded secret. Nobody needed to know, and I did not need the mockery of others. Often, my family would learn that I was in a relationship when it either was well underway, or when it was over. And if I mentioned it, I would only give hints or jokes about it. 

     When I seriously fell in love with the one I recently split after nearly ten years, I saw my fears come true. My siblings grilled me, discussed with me, voiced concerns. It was a serious commitment, after all: the borders between my former partner and me were wide, going over oceans, cultures and religions. The talk ended in tears, with me being utterly hurt that they wouldn't trust me or my love. Now, having encountered this talk for the second time, I see it as their way of taking care and wishing to protect me from further heart break. 

    And even during the time I was in a relationship with my former partner, the love was to be expressed privately: no public display of affection, little in terms of physical contact outside our home, no gushing when in front of others. I could see how I would embarrass them if I gave them public praise, and finding ways of doing so turned into a form of art. Everything was kept so much behind closed doors, that it played perfectly into my need to keep it secret. I would talk on a surface level about how much they meant to me, yes. That I loved them, and that they made me happy. But I would keep it at that. No further mention, no public announcement. The only concession to it was a profile picture on a social media platform I do not use any more. 

     Our relationship broke, and it broke way more violently than it got together. A full-fledged rose war, as the Germans call it. A nasty end to a slowly dying relationship.

     And now, here I stand. Collecting the shards, understanding what was my way to love, and what was theirs. And a new truth has shown itself in my life: that I want to care for all my loves equally, that I do not want to rank them. As was expected from me: this claim to "get your priorities straight". That in a culture which wants you to hide your love behind privacy, I wish to love boldly, and openly. That I wish not to rank my loves, but to take them the way they come. I have learned that the term for this way of non-hierarchical loving is called relationship anarchy, and I like the sound of that. A relationship network which does not set priorities other than those I give them myself. And where I respect the love they feel for others without having my feelings for them being questioned or devalued. 

     I wish to unfurl the banner. The sign of "Here I am, and here is how I love". To be finally able to proudly proclaim openly who I know to be my lover, to yell it from the rooftops. And in that sense:

     I love you, Velveteen Rabbit.

     I know that you are reading this - maybe the only one to do so. I do not care. I wanted you to read it, and this text is meant for you - as so many have been in the past. 

     I love you, Velveteen Rabbit. Full of ἔρως, Eros, and φιλία, Philia, and Παιχνίδια, Ludus, and πράγμα, Pragma, and even μανία, Mania. You will never be fully mine, as I know. But that won't stop me from yelling from the rooftops what I feel. 

     And the banner will be unrolled.

Or, as the poets say:

"Love so hard it makes people dizzy. Take it as a compliment. In an exhausted world that spins with violence, hatred, and monstrosity-- praise its joys. Snap those pictures.Tell your friends. Scrapbook it, publish it, make art out of it. Laugh about it, display it, live it. Put an end to the grotesque concept that something so beautiful, perhaps life’s most magnificent, should be sheltered. Let it grow."* 

*Moopsy: Love Loudly (2017)