Making Mountains Out of Molehills: Love in 2020
Presently, I am trying to help my housemate through a breakup. Or I should say rather, I am trying to be helpful during her break up…
My housemate’s break up is fairly amicable. She has returned a suitcase of clothes of his, and I believe he was holding on to her phone charger. We spent a less than sober evening discussing the viability of various curses — hoping that moles would invade his garden, that his new lodger will prove to be nuisance. It’s a childish and temporary kind of catharsis. But our everyday conversation about her relationship’s conclusion is marked by her resignation and a grudging acceptance of the state of affairs.
The second lockdown period we are experiencing (here in France) feels a little bit lighter than the first. Was that just the shock of the unexpected back in the Spring? Meanwhile, various friends appear to have been through the proverbial mill with their partners. Squeezed in together without any escape. Parted by the closure of regional borders. Discovering things through night-time chats that they never wished to know about their amour. Reluctantly compromising over the old disputes…
A great many of the people I know are un-married. Few are portraying themselves as a veritable “Pollyanna” — in person they’ll express love and fondness but it’s usually touched with cynicism. Their Instagram profiles might show you some great, great family times, amazing hugs, fabulous meals…but in some senses it would seem that there are those who have uploaded that desire to “keep up appearances” to social media. Whilst within the relationship things may be far more checkered. People are going backwards too — sharing past times — photos of times when going to the beach, or eating in a restaurant was a normal activity.
Does Love have a chance at this historical juncture? It’s been a while since I read Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving, but if I remember it tries to define Love as a skill to be learnt, rather than as the “magical force” we are used to imagining. When we learn, we doubt ourselves. That is part of the learning process. Learning to love during lockdown is proving hard for some, but not for others. It’s like the difference between the success of a crash course versus a weekly lesson. But in a World where we can easily maintain a kind of intimacy with each other using technological devices, and have many, so many possible people to connect to, Love is liable to get lost somewhere. Whilst I take Fromm’s point about True Love exemplifying a love for all Humanity, our modern life is, pandemic or not, rewriting the rules.
In my housemate’s narrative of her break-up, the pandemic and its subsequent lockdown does play a part. It certainly featured as a catalyst for events.
Plenty of us, let’s be frank, are with other people for some misguided need for continuity, or the ease of the familiar, rather than Love itself. That’s a human reality. The call of “be authentic in your relationship” or “be true to your desires” are easily made. But in these times, neither is easily lived. Social media is rife with memes and jokes about 2020 being a year that has worn people down. In moments like these I think it’s good to give yourself a break. Don’t put yourself in danger of course — and nobody should ask you to tolerate abuse. Perhaps you worry that your relationship is not “successful:” Put that notion aside in these turbulent terms. What really is success anyway? Forgive yourself your anxiety over something that is constant but imperfect, and strained by the difficulties of COVID 19.
An update: this weekend my housemate met her ex, and they exchanged some of the objects previously mentioned. To my knowledge, moles are yet to appear in his garden, and his lodger has not made a nuisance of themselves. The curses have failed. But perhaps the rituals to bring them into being were not that strong.
Her and he have agreed to try to meet up, as friends, in the New Year, when hopefully things have moved on from the restrictive lives we presently live.
Isn’t Love understanding how things change, and maintaining faith in our ability to change with them? Learn with them? When we love, aren’t we in some senses moving beyond the moments of passion and tenderness… to a place where we are not making mountains out of our own molehills?
