Unconditional Love

Today is a tell all, but I am going to change the names of certain individuals in order to protect identities. This is all piggy-backing off of my last blog post about being different, not having full acceptance, and whatnot.

So, I was involved with this person named Ellis [remember, name change for identity protection], but, according to him, it didn't work out thanks, in-part, to the fact that we had "such radical" differences in our life philosophies.  Ellis is a southern boy, born and raised here in Memphis, and yet he's so unlike anybody in this area.  This is more than likely what attracted me to him in the first place.  I'm not going to go into details about that, or I'll start getting nostalgic and send a text message.  So, yeah... our philosophies were so different that it was enough to hinder whatever love growth for me that may have occurred.  Ellis has this very common and text book philosophy regarding family and unconditional love.  He even applies it to some of [not all] of his exes.  Take his ex Haydn, for example.  Haydn, from what I have heard, cheated like no other.  Haydn promised Ellis a great many of things, did not deliver, and still, even until as recently as last year [when the relationship ended "years" ago] Haydn [unknowingly] still holds this power of Ellis, controlling Ellis's very emotions.

My aunt in Mississippi introduced me to the concept of "unconditional love" in 1997 when I was sent to Mississippi prior to our move to the south.  My father had been sent to jail for "spousal abuse" [they weren't even married], and I was less than twelve hours away from being put into "the system" [Child Protective Services... aka... orphanage].  She explained "unconditional love" as this form of love that one has for another person regardless of what happens.  Regardless of what that person does to you.  Unconditional love means that you love someone no matter what.

Now, forgive me if I seem a little different, but I think that that's complete and utter bull shit.  Perhaps in a couple of years I will have changed my mind on the situation, but right now, in the year 2011, thirteen years after having first been told about "unconditional love", I STILL think it's bull shit.  It was bull shit when my aunt told me, and it was bull shit when Ellis tried to highlight why we weren't morally compatible.

I'd rather not subscribe to this notion that would have me, years after the fact, pining over my ex.  This silly idea that keeps a door open when that door should be shut and locked with the key thrown away.  This is not to say that during those times of love that you did not have very special moments, that you did not learn valuable lessons, that you did not truly love.  However, unconditional love seems to only hurt people.

I have another aunt here in Memphis.  Part of her weekly routine is sitting out on the patio with one of our cousins who is a drug addict.  Every week she stresses herself out and shouts until her voice is gone, and then still ends up giving him twenty dollars.  Is this unconditional love or is this coddling?

You see, I am a believer in letting a person figure things out for themself.  Funding my cousin's drug habit will only influence him to use the money that I give, in the name of unconditional love, to buy more drugs, causing harm to his body. Ultimately I am to blame for his downfall.  Oh but ye of little faith, why not pray or hope for those people to get better?

It's the same thing with Ellis and Haydn.  You pretend that you're over things, and you're not.  You have a friendly relationship because you have unconditional love, but the relationship ended before 2008 and in 2010 you're sad about it.... and he's the one that did you wrong.... You can see how this unconditional love thing would NOT make sense to me right now, don't you?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt it.  The bottom line is we all have our different levels of forgiveness.  We all have our different capacities for love.  Because Ellis grew up in a very family oriented setting, once in which he had both his father and mother for a much greater time of his childhood and adolescent years, and because he had examples of that love [Ellis's parents divorced but remained friends], he would naturally have the philosophy that he has, and I respect that.

What I do not respect is the fact that he's using his life example to try and advise other people as if his example is the one and only solution to life.

Christmas Eve 1989, I remember sitting at the dinner table with my family.  The phone rang and my mother went to answer the phone.  She called for my aunt and said "It's your daughter calling to wish you merry Christmas."  My aunt proceeded to the phone and said "fuck you, do not call me" and hung up.  Definitely an influence on me, to be sure, but I'm not that cold.

The point is, people are different for different reasons.  One person's experience, one person's solution does not work for the next person.  I'm going to get over my situation and I will continue to do well in life as I have been from where I came.  I am certain that Ellis will do fine as well.  The only difference is that I feel that he will have more years of loneliness and turmoil by his own doing.  He will hold to these things that he should have let go of long ago.