I often think about the different kinds of love. Awful quiet love, messy screaming love, cozy blanket love. There’s also the 2000’s catchy pop tune, Happy Messy Love by Rachael Kane that seems to have a permanent place in my memory.
I think you always meet people you need to, and that includes people who have hurt you or that are no longer in your life. I believe that if you look back with enough gratitude you can see why they were there. If you’re a true master of gratitude you should be able to mentally thank and appreciate your significant other's' exes, that one might take some work but ultimately they helped you get to where you are.
Contrary to my favourite band Marianas Trench, I don’t believe that one true love is the only one you get. Most days I think that you get three loves, your first, your lesson and your last. And not always in that order. That’s where this shirt design came from. At it’s time of creation this was how I thought each major love I had looked like.
The first was about a love that from the outside looked right but was ultimately missing something inside. There was a layer missing that couldn’t be found. Digging deeper there was more love. An intrinsic, intertwined connection that kept the relationship together, but ultimately right in the middle -dare I say heart- of it all there was an emptiness that neither of us could fill at the time.
The middle is a kind of love where all the pieces were there yet it was incomplete. Something critical had kept the relationship from forming, absence taking its place. My only advice if you’re in this place is that you would be doing the wrong thing if you force it. Whatever is wrong with the timing or the situation will not be resolved by you pushing.
The last is one that I will probably talk about again. It looks like an explosion that has taken place and there are these sharp, jagged edges all over the place. And you feel like you’re inside of a volcano and you’re indestructible and their embrace is like home. But this is unstable and impractical for whatever reason. Look at it! You can’t be in it, you’ll be stabbed all over the place. BUT GOSH IT WAS GOOD.
A friend of mine had the biggest fight with her partner and I asked what happened next and she said that she told him that she loved him, because there and then in the fight, she knew it. I’ll leave you with a final thought; have happy loves and speak up whenever it doesn’t align quite right. Steer clear from ego loves and focus on soul loves instead.
x❤x -SL