Passion & Stability
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009So, Belle de Jour has, with class, revealed her identity (and that interview is really good). And it’s a bit of a surprise! (But not so much to a small few.) And it makes sense that such a good writer had some good education.
It’s been a long time since I checked her blog, but reading it today I came across this coincidentally relevant piece of writing:
I’m not talking about passion. I am, indeed, passionate about T, hugely so. But if the last years have taught me nothing else it’s that passion is usual, common even. It can be had by the hour if you’re so inclined. You can fall for someone in an instant, for an instant. What this is, is something else.
So much has changed since last summer that I can hardly imagine, much less express, all of it. But I’ll try. For the first time in years, I feel safe. No longer do I look in the mirror and see someone who puts up with emotional abuse because no one else would have me. I see someone who is free to choose to love and be loved, or be alone, whatever she likes.
I wake up in the morning next to someone who feels like… like nothing else. The road hasn’t been easy, we’ve both had cold feet at different times, we’ve both questioned this. We both keep choosing each other.
It’s true, the part about passion being “usual, even common.” Passion is easy. Love is easy. Safety and stability are… something else. A friend in Germany recently posited that everyone needs a balance of passion & stability, and I agree. There are different kinds of passion and it’s good to be well-rounded. But it’s also good to know the different kinds, to defer to experience and time to demonstrate safety and stability.
Ironically, it occurs to me that a relationship incapable of staying “casual” for an extended period of time, may be exactly the kind of relationship that’s unlikely to last.. Whereas, a relationship that weathers ups and downs with a seemingly distant shrug, patiently growing deeper with time, that’s the garden of bounty.
