Tainted

I recently finished reading Love in the Time of Cholera. A classic, often described as a poignant illustration of true love. It's been a few weeks, but it took me a while, in conjunction with other media, to realize how heartbroken it left me. How it shattered all my illusions, and how it wrecked the world I was living in.

Because it was my first insight into just how broken love is. Always painful, always defective. In hindsight, there were telltale signs all along. Wuthering Heights, a literary masterpiece, the epitome of portrayal of honest emotion. But looking closely, it's a story of rejecting love, and the resentment that follows from this choice. Movies, TV, music - all promise love, and all end up depicting something else entirely.

I grew up believing in fairytale love. A life-altering, all-consuming, cathartic love. A one person policy. Because nothing and nobody else would seem worth the effort, or, more importantly, would deserve it. And if the Universe in its calamitous cruelty were to keep two souls apart, they'd rather be two broken halves of a glorious whole, than a misguided whole with another half that doesn't quite fit.

But with every passing day, and every passing story, fictitious and otherwise, mistrust chips away at my faith in the purity of love. My utopian ideology is challenged everyday, and everyday the dreamland I created as a child is besmirched by real life. I have been a relentless advocate of feeling your feelings. But what do you do when you aren't sure if they fit into this unforgiving world that is inflicted upon your heart?

Am I looking for a light that is destined to be forever out of my reach?