I’ve had some sleepless nights lately. My mind is full of doubts and questions and worries. It’s been giving me nightmares that have me actually crying out in my sleep. Storm has had to soothe me back to sleep when I’ve woke her up. That puts her in a great mood. So last night there weren’t any nightmares, but then I’d have had to actually gone to sleep for that. I dozed off for a bit here and there, but didn’t get any real deep sleep going. I actually ended up out in the living room because once I finally did get to sleep I must have snored or something because Storm woke me up with a sharp ‘shh!’ which pissed me off so I got up. We seem to sleep better in seperate rooms.
So I sat out here with a blanket and a cat and stared into the dark and my mind whirred a mile a minute. There’s a lot going on right now with us. Things that should make me very happy, but I’m not. I’m confused and scared and sometimes even pissed off. I need advice but there’s no one I can talk to who can give me an unbiased opinion. I told Storm that I think we need counseling of some sort. We need a third party to tell our sides to, someone who isn’t predisposed toward one or the other of us. Or worse, tells each of us what we want to hear even if it means they are playing both sides. We don’t have anyone like that and we can’t afford actual couples therapy so we’re pretty much out of luck. I dont’ know if that would make any difference anyway. Storm has a degree in that kind of thing and I don’t think she’d do very well on the receiving end of it. You now how they say doctors make the worst patients? Yeah, that kind of thing. She’s very good at analyzing other people and pinpointing ways to help them, but like most people, she can’t see her own situation and see what needs to be done. I’m the same way. It’s easier to look at someone else and tell them what they need to do to fix something. I think it’s because our own emotions aren’t involved in their drama.
One of the things I was thinking about is sort of philosophical and it’s something I can share. It’s also the basis of our problems. As far as I’m concerned anyway. I was thinking about love and passion. It’s possible to have one without the other, apart from family relationships. I love my friends, some more than others honestly. But I don’t feel any passion toward them. In the same vein I have felt passion for someone, lust really, and not had any of the softer loving emotions toward them apart from basic friendliness. But I don’t feel that a monogamous, committed relationship can be without both of these things. They need each other to survive.
In the beginning a relationship has them both. There’s love and there’s passion and these fuel each other. But what happens over time as the passion fizzles out. I know, I’ve been told that’s the natural progression of things. Supposedly the love is supposed to make up for the lack of passion as the years go by. I don’t see how. Sure, if a couple are happy with the love they have changing into more of a deep friendship than a love affair then that’s great for them. If they don’t mind that there is no sizzle left, no fire or chemistry between them anymore then they can still be happy together. But what if that comfortable kind of love isn’t enough? What if only one of them feels that way?
I feel that way. I want a realtionship that keeps that fire alive. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life living with someone I love just a step above a friend. I need more than that. I deserve more than that. I deserve passion and I deserve to feel as if I am wanted on a sheer physical level. Some may say that my need to feel wanted, even lusted after, stems from a lack of self esteem. That I need that outside input because I don’t like myself and that I can’t build good self esteem based on how other people treat me. Why not? It’s how other people treat me that tears my self esteem apart, why can’t it build it up as well? Besides, this isn’t about self esteem….it’s about sex. Raw, hot, wet sex and the lack thereof. For me, a relationship that lacks good sex or any sex for that matter cannot survive. It is vital and essential. Some people may be happy in a platonic relationship. I’m not one of them.
How can love survive without passion? I don’t think it can. I think it begins to wither and to morph into something else altogether. Sure it can become caring. It can become that kind of emotion where you can’t really imagine your life without that person, but you don’t feel that same charge, that flutter of excitement you used to feel at the mere thought of them. You would miss them if they were gone, but would your heart break? Would you lie awake at night and ache to have them beside you again? I don’t think so. I think you’d pick yourself up and get on with life and maybe that would include finding passion again.
