Relationships

Of the romantic variety. The all-consuming, blissful, heart-wrenching, ecstatic, soul-breaking, tearful, breathtaking, joyful, sanity-defying and every God damn feeling we do and don’t want to have all at once, from one end of the spectrum all the way to the other. We’ve all had one.

We ask ourselves, tell ourselves, why am I doing this? I don’t need this, I need this! We question whether the positives outweigh the negatives, whether it is all really worth it, whether this is what we actually want? Of course we do, don’t we?

Relationships. They are never black and white. They are nearly always a fuzzy black/white/grey. Like the old TV snow. All loud and crackly, making you panic and to quickly find the remote and change the channel or switch the damn thing off. That is exactly what they are like. Relationships force you to see who you are inside, what you do to other people, how you change them and how they change you. You are forced to feel uncomfortable, to feel confused, guilty and angry and then be rendered exhausted and bewildered wondering what the hell just happened.

The reason why we continue to put ourselves through this lies with a deeply ingrained belief that we too will someday find that fairy-tale ending. Cinderella and Prince Charming, Romeo and Juliet, one of the million couples out of those many Hollywood blockbusters or fictional narratives who somehow survive something so epic and come out amazed and in love.

My belief, my base of relationships, date back to when I was fourteen and I was reading ‘The Notebook’. ‘The Notebook?’, you say? Yes I, Tanya Chalmers, am a hopeless romantic. Allie Hamilton has characteristics that I have somehow shaped to myself, and every boyfriend I have had has been a potential Noah Calhoun, which isn’t too shabby a comparison, to say the least. Noah was wild and reckless, focused and passionate, and all of his love was for her only. Allie and Noah, they loved each other like school kids but with a raging passion that was X-rated. Their fights were raw and awful, nasty and hurtful but in the end, their love for one another erased all of the bad and turned it into something wonderful, equally deep and devouring.

With this in mind, we have to know when to say goodbye to a relationship that isn’t worth continuing. My conviction is to respect yourself enough to know how much respect you deserve from another person. You need to be able to tell the difference, to know when someone has treated you with contempt. And to walk away.

Love is never easy, it is intricate and complex. But pure and honest love will always be worth it. And even if it doesn't work out in the end, you should never have to look back with regret.

Now, in this life, I can bravely say I have found my Edward from 'Twilight', my Mr Rochester from 'Jane Eyre' and, finally, my Noah from 'The Notebook'.