Wars of art & love

Thoughts on romantic love, artistry & solitude.

Part of me has always believed that art and love are in direct competition with each other.

That true artists live a life of solitude.

That the presence of one in my life naturally wipes out the other. That only one can be done properly. When I say art, I mean my writing. When I say love, I mean romantic love.

As a young woman, to love someone meant offering up my vibrant, independent heart like a ritual sacrifice in exchange for love. The hook being they never specifically asked or expected such a sacrifice. But the proximity to someone with a stronger sense of self would mean their spirit would eventually take over. A sacrifice would happen. The twist? As a result of my sacrificial offering, trading my moxie for something that limps like love, they'd mutter 'it's not the same' and it would all disintegrate anyway.

In reaction to a series of big blows on the stage of love – mostly, the complete annihilation of my sense of self, independence and psychological connection to my desires, dreams, and needs, I discovered that, to me, love is a violence. After a few rounds in the ring, losing a few teeth, getting sick of scrubbing my own blood off the floor, I eventually learnt that love equals my erasure. To love is to eradicate my individuality. Upon learning this, I set out to make sure that never happened again.

Like a pendulum swing, I threw myself into the opposite of my own erasure. I threw myself into the creation of myself. Doused in independence and detachment, I would let them touch the outside of me but never let them slide a hand into my heart. It was now vaulted. Sectioned off from the world and completely out of order. I kept my own heart like a secret, but I felt wonderful. Convertible down a hazy coastline wonderful. Wearing red lipstick to work wonderful. Liquid limbs and the return of sensuality wonderful.

Did I section off my heart and was it unhealthy? Probably, but if I'm honest, I didn't care. I had the time of my life. I had never felt the pulse of myself so acutely. The scarlet hum of my own desire so vividly. Through devoted self-discovery, promiscuity and a taste for freedom – I, somehow, came barreling back toward myself. Every ghost of myself returning.

Breathless from the revival of my own vibrancy, I promised to never let love step one fucking foot on my front porch. I'd stand there in a black dress with a shotgun in my hand and ward off anyone who tried to stick their foot in the door of my feelings. A few had the audacity to come up to my front door, and I hissed at them.

Eventually though, as time went on, I became a little over-confident. I was certain I'd live forever in beautiful solitude letting lovers into my bed but always kicking them out. Banning them from staying the night. Retaining this sparkling life of mine. I thought I'd see anything coming for me, anything rustling in the knee high grass. Turns out, I was wrong.

Now, as I ease my way into the waters of deep intimacy, I'm coming face to face with truths I can no longer turn away from.

Trading your independence for love is a betrayal. Swinging violently to the other side – vaulting your love off, is a cruelty. Thinking that the answer exists in everything or nothing is a detriment to human nature.

To learn independence in the face of love is difficult. To love amongst the loudness of independence is also difficult. But neither are impossible. To choose one is a cop out. An easy way out, where I don't have to get on my knees and do work, but rather pick a side and follow it without thinking. There is a space between. There is something wedged between. And it's grey. Complex. It has a face but I don't know it yet.

I've settled into this love. It's been years now.

Late 2021, I stumbled across two land mines in my own psyche. It wiped me out. Heaving lungs on the floor kind of crumbling. Something had been festering underneath all our laughter. Beneath our artistic connection, the skin, the Sundays; something had been lurking. Beneath me there was a rotting fear of love. Of the real thing. Of loving so profoundly it would break me. Of the threat of loss, sickness, illness, death. Of having to learn that loving someone means learning to reckon with mortality. Mine, his, ours.

The second land mine? Fear of my potential.

Art and love, for me, are inextricably linked. They wind together closely, like a DNA helix.

The deeper I get into love, the more these murky fears of mine sit in a corner and tell me that to be a real artist requires a solitary life. That I'll never be great if I have love in my corner.

Joining my own psychological wounding around love, I also think it comes from the belief that women can't have what we want – we always have to sacrifice. But also from the modern feminist belief whispering to liberated women that to live a solitary life is ideal and to love a man is a weakness, a betrayal and even a failure. I never would have guessed these two ideas from opposing worlds would intersect. But they have. Telling me it's true, I should pick one.

The voices are cruel but convincing. In my own voice. As eerie as an artificial intelligence rendition. I could be forgiven for believing they had my best interests at heart based on all the bruises still purple on the inside. I would surrender to these thoughts, I would listen – if it wasn't for the evidence. The almost empirical evidence that love has never hindered my art. It has blown it up, sent it barreling upwards and outwards. Love has amplified my art, provoked it, cracked it open and sent it whistling across the night sky.

And since I also fear my own potential, and love helps me realise my potential, it makes sense that attacking love is my way out of facing my future as an artist. There is a violence to all this want, I know that now. If someone were to lean in close enough, they might just see the hurricane I house. Maybe, I wonder, if that's why I'm a writer. Maybe I was made for this war.