valentine's day

this is the second post in my blogging lifetime with this title.
i hope this one is happier than the last few have been.
(i think it will be)
i don't like the days that make me remember love. love was the worst thing to ever happen to me. it made me different, like someone who's not actually me. now i'm so different from that--i was so dependent, like a leech, on my own emotions. i was hinged.
now my thoughts are clearer, i have a sense of reality back. i enjoy it. and it's startling how okay with this i am on valentine's day.
in retrospect, if i had just spent less time trying to take pity and be in love and live up to an ideal, i would've been happier, but let this be a learning experience and a reminder as to how i should never conduct myself in the future. i used to believe in love above all things. maybe there's truth in that, but maybe, just maybe, love is not a wild boundless emotion like i had imagined. maybe love is controllable and able to be molded into something nice and productive, instead of scary and mercurial.
i may seem calloused from the becca of the past, but i'm more grounded now. i understand that love is not always what you see in movies a la the notebook, and my love wasn't like that anyway. it was twisted and distorted, just like my world view.
recently, i've tried to imagine a never-ending deep, emotional-roller-coaster love like i used to believe in, and i just can't see it anymore.
in the past, i would have argued the whole 'with great power comes great responsibility' thing. for instance, just because the bad times are bad the good times are worth it...but when the good times aren't worth it, and the bad times are terrible, there's no excuse to dwell on the situation. it's a great feeling to know you care so deeply for a cause that you're willing to ruin your life for it, very romantic indeed, but it's so heart wrenching and not worth it. i'd rather live in a numbness than feel the pain of that mess for a long, long time.
i guess, i'm in a phase in which i've grown out of love. i mean, not like fell out of love, but literally grown out of the concept of love. i'm not romantic like that anymore. i don't see the balance associated with it. i want reciprocation.
i acknowledge that it is a phase. i know it is. it'll pass, but for now, valentine's day is good because i know that there are people floating around my life who really care about me--in love with me or not. it's not the most important thing. i love my friends, a love stronger and more constant than that for any romance, which is a great feeling to have. maybe that's the kind of love you are supposed to find with your guy: the kind where you know it's constant and you don't fight and you love them for them and because they care for you. where's that guy?
he'll come along, i'm sure.
anyway. happy valentine's day.