The Nevers That Consume Us

This actually started as an essay called 'I'll Never...' that quietly sits in my writing portfolio. This encompasses a few more issues and expounds upon said essay, but the heart of the essay remains...

I had been thinking about how we use the phrase, 'Never Settle for 'insert item here'', and how it seems like everyone tries to not settle, and yet a good portion of the time we do. It is not that we want to, but I think we often times get too tired of searching for whatever it is, and simply settle, one of the many 'Nevers' we often ignore. Pity, I think. Of course, this is truly the pot calling the kettle black, for I have settled when I did not need to, compromised unnecessarily and later realised that I damaged myself in doing so. When a person settles, whether it be in love, work, material goods, spirituality, it can lessen a person, making them more and more vulnerable on levels we might not be able to sense until we are well and truly trapped. Now, I understand the value of compromise as anyone else does, but a compromise that diminishes us is not a compromise at all. Indeed, marriage is all about compromise, but I think the mistake is letting one partner overwhelm the other until the compromises are completely empty and then love becomes compromised in the end. And it is tough to separate the two... never compromise your love. The only way to love is without compromise or condition, yet living with someone forces us to face conditions and compromises. And often times we say we will not do such a thing... yet it happens and one 'Never' consumes us, leading to others.

The 'never' of never settling can then become a 'never leave you', a 'never hurt you', 'never want another', 'never make the same mistakes' and so on... it can then become an exercise in saying those things to cover the most important one 'love'. Expressing love through negative articulation simply reduces the emotion itself. This is something I completely failed to understand while married. I kept repeating 'never leave you', 'never hurt you' until it replaced 'I love you' and diminished the impact of my love, which I thought was uncompromising, but found it lacking through my actions. That is the trap many of us face, I have faced, and likely will face... but to understand it allows one to recognise it, and perhaps find another way to deal with these 'nevers' that can consume us, for not having to say them might be as true as an expression of love as 'I love you.'

C.