I Refuse To Believe In The ‘Sustainability Model’ Of Love

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I’m calling bullshit.

This “sustainability model” where you choose & forgo other options solely because this option feels sustainable.

I am talking about this specifically in regards to love.  

In conversations with many of my peers, there’s an unsettling notion that to find a lasting partner, we must choose someone that is practical.  Someone that your pragmatic mind would opt for. But what good does that really do?

Does this sustainability model you’ve chosen drive your soul on fire? Eh, not quite.  Does it make you satisfied and hungry at the same time? Not really, no…but— I am sorry, my dear, but choosing this only gives you a constant reminder that you that you’ve opted to settle.

There’s a number of articles floating around like “We Don’t Always End Up With The Love Of Our Lives (And That’s Okay)” where it details the big love and how we don’t end up with them due to a number of reasons.  That we don’t end up with the “love of our life” and “that’s okay”.

False. That’s not okay.

I refuse to believe that.

And I am writing this because for a moment, I actually believed it.  After comments of “but that isn’t reality” and “that’s not sustainable” I momentarily agreed with them. I believed I would not end up with the ever-coveted “love of my life”. But that belief made me.so.sad.  

Thinking I couldn’t and wouldn’t end up with this big love made my heart ache so deep my stomach hurt.  

Because I have already had this big love. And, boy…it was big.  

You may know what I’m referring to.

The kind of all-consuming-happily-drunken love that becomes the perfect addition to you.

The kind of love that breathes poetry into your veins and fire into the core of your soul that you can’t help but dance because life becomes technicolor.  

The kind of love that is so profound that it sets an entirely new bar on how you want to be loved.

The kind of love that is and was the love-of-your-life love.  

It was your biggest love. And unfortunately, you are not with them now.

Articles like “We Don’t Always End Up With The Love Of Our Lives (And That’s Okay)” are a great read but only makes it okay to settle.  Gives us the condolences, pulls on our aching heart strings, pats us on the backs, and offers the sustainable option.

Well, my sweet little peach, yes—they were your big love.  Perhaps your biggest love yet.  But they are not your BIG love.  

Because I whole-heartedly believe that your big love will be sustainable.  

You get these incredible lovers-of-your-life to teach you, “when you know, you know” so you do know when he/she shows up for good.

So, my dearest, sweetest little peach, do not choose someone just because. Just because they’re here.  Just because they’re near.  Just because you want to be with someone. Because I guarantee, you do not want to be on the other side of the just-because equation. 

My sister and her husband of 5 years still to this day introduce each other as “this is my true love”. My best friend’s dad knew he wanted to marry his wife within 7 hours of meeting her.  They’ve been together 29 years now still madly, deeply, and passionately in love with one another.  

A sustainability model is accepting the passiveness of life.  It’s giving into it.  The only way you can find this big, lasting love, is to love without a safety net.

And make no mistake, sweet one, before this big, incredible, sustainable, love comes along, there is one big love you need to find first.  The absolute, unwavering, deep love for yourself.  Because that love is the biggest, truest, wildest and longest love you will ever have.  

“how you love yourself is

how you teach others

to love you”

—Rupi Kaur

So, I dare you.  I dare you to optimize.  I dare you to keep loving with the entirety of your wild and mighty heart.  Because your heart will find that soul that will forever inspire your life to be lived in technicolor.