{"id":579,"date":"2013-09-02T07:40:32","date_gmt":"2013-09-02T14:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellejolin.com\/wordpress\/?p=579"},"modified":"2013-09-01T21:13:35","modified_gmt":"2013-09-02T04:13:35","slug":"true-love-is-the-devils-crowbar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=579","title":{"rendered":"True love is the devil’s crowbar"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s guilt edged
\nGlamorous and sleek by design
\nYou know it’s jealous by nature
\nFalse and unkind
\nIt’s hard and restrained
\nAnd it’s totally cool
\nIt touches and it teases
\nAs you stumble in the debris<\/p>\n

—Love Is A Stranger\/the Eurythmics<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.<\/p>\n

—1 Corinthians\/13:4-7<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The course of true love never did run smooth.<\/p>\n

—William Shakespeare<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When I was (so very, very) young, I fell in love.<\/p>\n

It was one of the most important things that has ever happened to me. For good or bad, it’s one of the biggest reasons I am who I am as an adult. Why I react (or don’t) the way I do. How I interact (or don’t) with other people.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The boy I fell in love with as a teenager is not the man I’m married to today. Who, let’s just get this out there, I love very much.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wait, what?! You said True Love!<\/p>\n

Yes. And I meant it. In both cases.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unlike the shingleback skink and French angelfish, humans do not normally mate for life. You thought I was going to go with something a little more noble, didn’t you? Just because I said True Love.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

C’mon. It’s love. Love<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Love is big.<\/p>\n

Complicated.<\/p>\n

Messy.<\/p>\n

Dirty.<\/p>\n

Sweaty.<\/p>\n

Sweet.<\/p>\n

Sad.<\/p>\n

Tough.<\/p>\n

Tender.<\/p>\n

Simple.<\/p>\n

Hard.<\/p>\n

Everything.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Any time you love someone, it changes you. Mostly, I think, for the better. But I do think that it molds you more as a person if it happens at a young age. You don’t have any of an adult’s defenses in place. Your personality and character are still being formed. You’re more malleable.<\/p>\n

I sometimes wonder if having such a glowing experience of first love was good for me in the long term. On one hand, it was wonderful. There aren’t enough superlatives. On the other hand, it pretty much ruined me for anything else for a long time. I might have dealt with it better if I’d been older, but if I’d been older I might not have been so open to it and it might not have been as wonderful. Maybe. Could be. Or not. In any case, it was one of the things that made me who I am now.<\/p>\n

Would I trade it if I could?
\nNo fucking way.<\/p>\n

I wouldn’t trade any of my experiences, even the bad ones. If I did, who knows who I’d end up being. Certainly not who I am.<\/p>\n

People don’t like to admit it, but often Love has a lot more in common with “Love is a Stranger” than it does with 1 Corinthians. Love is both awful and awe inspiring. It’s wonderful and swoony and it makes you wonder if you’re losing your fucking mind. Sometimes it’s permanent. Sometimes it’s not. It makes you happy, and it makes you miserable. It makes you want to live, and it makes you want to open a vein. Sometimes your own vein, sometimes their<\/em> vein.<\/p>\n

Mostly, love is. It just is<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If you love someone, and that person doesn’t do something really horrendous to change how you feel, I think you love them forever. Sometimes you love them forever anyway. It’s always part of you, they are always part of you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I’ve been very lucky.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s guilt edged Glamorous and sleek by design You know it’s jealous by nature False and unkind It’s hard and restrained And it’s totally cool It touches and it teases As you stumble in the debris —Love Is A Stranger\/the Eurythmics   Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not … Continue reading True love is the devil’s crowbar<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lr3R-9l","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3548,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=3548","url_meta":{"origin":579,"position":0},"title":"There is no spoon. I mean there is no true or false.","author":"Michelle","date":"January 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Time to change has come and gone Watched your fears become your god It's your decision, it's your decision --Alice In Chains\/Your Decision Recently I was having a discussion with someone who doesn't know me well. He insisted that I see everything as black or white, which makes me decide\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7945,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=7945","url_meta":{"origin":579,"position":1},"title":"Nothing comes from nothing","author":"Michelle","date":"October 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Nothing comes from nothing, Nothing ever could. So somewhere in my youth or childhood I must have done something good. --Rodgers and Hammerstein\/Something Good There's this really annoying song that's been entrenched in my brain for several days. I don't know about most people, but to me that's a lot\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10426,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=10426","url_meta":{"origin":579,"position":2},"title":"Things are always good","author":"Michelle","date":"August 15, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"So, if this does end up being my last letter, please believe that things are good with me, and even when they\u2019re not, they will be soon enough. And I will believe the same about you. --S. Chbosky\/The Perks of Being A Wallflower.\u00a0 I have brought this up before, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Random thoughts"","block_context":{"text":"Random thoughts","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=20"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michellejolin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_2470-0.jpg?fit=341%2C391&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9240,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=9240","url_meta":{"origin":579,"position":3},"title":"An imaginary conversation about TV habits","author":"Michelle","date":"February 7, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Don't you think it's weird that people always say they never watch TV? Always never? Right. Some people really don't watch TV. I hardly ever do, outside of football season. You watch old movies all the time. Does that count? Do you watch them on your TV? Sure, but they're\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Imaginary Conversation"","block_context":{"text":"Imaginary Conversation","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=18"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10428,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=10428","url_meta":{"origin":579,"position":4},"title":"Choosing who to become","author":"Michelle","date":"September 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we\u2019ll never know most of them. But even if we don\u2019t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. -- S.Chbosky\/The Perks of Being A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Random thoughts"","block_context":{"text":"Random thoughts","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=20"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michellejolin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/IMG_2470-0.jpg?fit=341%2C391&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5091,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=5091","url_meta":{"origin":579,"position":5},"title":"What I didn’t know then","author":"Michelle","date":"April 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I wish I didn't know now What I didn't know then. --Bob Seger\/Against The Wind You like to think that knowing more is better. That's mostly true, I guess. You can probably never have too much general knowledge. Other things, like the things you learn about life and about people,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michellejolin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/20140415-070214.jpg?fit=225%2C300&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}