Surrender

Maybe I’m dead,
Maybe I’m afraid of love,
But you could be just enough.
I leave come the light,
So we have but the hours of the night.
And that’s alright.
-I The Mighty

We’ve come a long, long way together.
Through the hard times and the good.
I have to celebrate you, baby.
I have to praise you like I should.
-Fatboy Slim

Out of your vulnerabilities, will come your strength.
-Sigmund Freud

Surrender, in my world, is usually a bad thing. After all, in war when you surrender yourself that’s pretty much it isn’t it? You give up. You have nothing more in you, so why go on? You’re on a new workout program and you stop being as active as you told yourself you would be. Surrender. You are finally following that diet of yours because this time will be the time. Then you stumble across the best chicken strips in Austin and all of a sudden you relapse. Surrender. 

What if surrendering yourself to something or someone wasn’t such a negative thing, though? 

Sometimes I find myself reminiscing on first and lost loves. Remembering the reasons they ended and realizing, painfully, the lessons they can teach you. The first time someone is in love, they approach it with such energy and passion. Finally, here is someone that loves me for who I am. Not in the familial way which is usually implied. Not even in the friendly way that lacks the level of closeness and affection we all crave. No, this is different. You are able to open yourself up fully to another person for the first time in your life without judgment or shame. You share everything about yourself and receive this amazing feeling back. 

Until it doesn’t. 

I recently read that falling out of love with someone is a lot like going bankrupt – slowly at first and then all at once. This isn’t to play the blame game, either. One of you starts to forget the little things that made their partner happy. One of you forgets to reciprocate or reconnect. One of you forgets to relay that communication in honest, open and difficult ways. Relationships are work, right? But, Lord, isn’t everything work nowadays? The craziest thing to me is how relationships between romantic partners are treated in such a bubble nowadays when compared to other types of relationships. Let’s take for example, you have a puppy. You put in a lot of work in the beginning and man do you love that little fluffy moron. Over the years, do you ever just get tired of your dog and then say to yourself, “well, she was really cute as a puppy and I just don’t feel that anymore so I’m just going to get another one because this adult dog thing just doesn’t feel the same way as in the beginning”. I think in most sane cases the answer to this is no. You just love your dog. So you aren’t willing to toss it to the side when it becomes “too much work” or “different”. So why are relationships so quick to end? 

Relationships develop over time and change but it seems, at some point, enough is enough. You go bankrupt and you cash out before things get any worse. You surrender. 

And I think it’s this concept that I really struggled with when I was younger. You give everything to another person, sometimes to a fault and then all of a sudden it isn’t what it once was. For me, it was a hard pill to swallow because all of us have the same reaction afterwards. You build up your little army. The “hardass” version manifests and intercepts to protect yourself from future hurt, they can’t hurt you if you’re strong enough. The “withdrawn” version of you refuses to start dating again, it isn’t worth the pain of rejection. The “cynical” version of you comes in to block from getting too close to someone too soon, they are just going to leave you anyway. A veritable army of different personality traits march forward with shields to protect the most important thing behind them – yourself. It manifests in so many ways, too. Just from talking to people over the short span of my life so far will tell you everything you need to know. The Player chasing down every woman he can might have someone in his past that hurt him so badly he never lets anyone get that close again. The Ghoster refusing to reply because she is too scared to start the process all over again. The results may vary and the list continues endlessly. 

We have created our armies to march into battle and they will end relationships brutally and swiftly on your behalf. Sometimes without even realizing you did.

It doesn’t make anyone inherently good or bad, either. Good people are capable of bad things. Bad people are capable of good things. It just means we are all looking out for that scared kid hiding in the background. 

But I want to posit that maybe it’s time to surrender our armies to save who we really are. Before we’re lost for good.

Recently, my sister decided to get married to someone she is very in love with. One of the strongest women I know had to do something incredibly brave and trust someone else with her heart. Fully, completely, and open for the world to see. Someone I’ve known to have built up her own army over the years. Someone I love very deeply and only want the best for. It’s one of the happiest moments I’ve seen from her in a long time. So, in this, my little sister continues to be an inspiration for myself and journey. 

Open yourself up to that love you felt the first time. Before you knew any better about the world. Connect with your partner often. Ask the hard questions about their happiness and be honest about your own. Write them small notes when you’re thinking about them. Buy their favorite candy when you see it on the shelves. Spend time asking deeper questions than, “how was your day”? If you feel like they don’t love you anymore, tell them. If you feel your love for them diminishing, say something. Maybe you can work on it together. Maybe some things aren’t meant to be. It doesn’t make you a bad person to reconnect in hard ways. In my experience, the hardest choices and the right choices are usually the same. Approach each other with compassion and caring. Listen to what the other person is saying. Don’t be so defensive or withdrawn, that’s your army talking. You may get hurt in this process, but it’s a process all the same. You don’t need to hold everything in. You don’t need to explode when something needs to be said. Surrender who you are to the person you love and it may surprise you more than you think. Remember how you fell in love in the first place.

Bravery is the ability to stand up to something extremely difficult and scary. It isn’t to defend yourself from every possible angle of attack. It’s to learn and grow. To know that you may get hurt along the path but that the path never ends. Maybe the brave thing to start doing is to have our army lay their weapons down and allow ourselves to see the sun again. Yes, there is the very real possibility of being hurt again and again. But you don’t always need these other versions of yourself coming to your rescue. 

You’ve got this.

Be open to that hurt. Be open to love. No matter what comes, you can stand tall. 

And that surrender isn’t always a bad thing.