Love's illusions

After my hike to the hut, I found myself on the valley floor with an entire day in front of me. Though it made sense to go back to my hotel room after such an emotionally moving experience and physically strenuous hike, I really didn't feel like going home yet.  So, instead of turning left and returning to my hotel, I turned right, and followed the trail that lead to a series of ponds.
As I was walking along the trail, a strange compulsion emerged in me: a compulsion to sing. The song that was welling up inside of me was Both Sides Now- a song that I remembered from my childhood. I distinctly remember listening to it in the corner of my room on my little record player.
I was surprised by this compulsion to sing. It wasn't a sing-out-loud-joyful compulsion, it wasn't an expression of happiness or self, it was a physical compulsion to move this song from my abdomen, up my esophagus and throat, and then out my mouth in to the world.
And so, I opened my mouth and started to sing the song the way I remembered it:
Moons and Junes and ferris wheels
the dizzy dancing way you feel
when every fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way

But when I did this, each time I sang "Moons and Junes..." I choked up: my throat constricted, my voice wavered, I felt like I was going to cry, but then I didn't.
I didn't understand this- why would my body want me to sing, but then not let me? It didn't make sense, so I tried a couple more times. I tried to sing, but each time the song got to my throat, it would falter and waver and when it came out of my mouth, it was weak and broken.
So then I decided that it was the out loud part of things that was tripping me up- that it was hearing the sound of my own voice that was causing me to choke up. I wondered if it was the sound of my own voice, the sound of a grown woman singing this song from my childhood that was difficult for me.
See, my mom must have sung to me when I was little. I have only a few memories of her and I've often struggled to determine which ones are actual memories of the event and which are ones that people have told me about. But one of the few memories that I know that I have, is of singing the lyrics from Somewhere Over the Rainbow: "If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow why oh why can't I?" with my mom, in my room, with that same record player. I know it's true because no one else was there, so they couldn't have told me about it.
So when I heard my voice singing, I wondered if I was mourning the loss of my mom- that in hearing my voice singing instead of hers, that I was feeling the transition of myself into her position, that I was a grown woman and she was no longer in that position of mothering me, of singing to me, that I played that role now.
So then I tried singing again, to experience this loss, this movement forward, this acceptance of myself as a grown woman, whose mother was dead.
But the same thing happened- I could move the song up my abdomen but I couldn't actually sing it, I could only slightly chokingly falteringly utter the words somewhat melodically.

So then I decided that apparently, it was too much for me right now, that I was overwhelmed by this and just didn't have the tools to experience it, so I let it go.
But then I remembered when something like this had happened before- when I felt too overwhelmed by my feelings about my mom to experience them and had let them go only to long for them later, to wish that I had experienced them when they had come up.
So I tried again.
This time what I noticed, was the lyrics. What I noticed was that I seemed to be able to sing the 'moons and junes and ferris wheels' part of the song, but that when I got to the next part, it was almost impossible.
(The lyrics that I was singing turn out to be a mixup of different parts of the song- some from the first section, some from the last, but this is what I struggled to sing):

I've looked at love that way

But now they only block the sun
they rain and snow on everyone
so many things I could have done
but clouds got in my way

I've looked at love from both sides now
from up and down
and still somehow

it's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all

And it was that last lyric, I realized, that was tripping me up: It's love's illusions I recall, I really don't know love at all.
I suddenly pictured my mom, in our house, with the three of us away at school. At the same time, I recalled the diary entries of hers that I had read; ones that she written when she was in her twenties, and dating. I recalled her entries about her disappointment in the men after the dates, about her ideals of what she wanted in a boyfriend/ partner and her desire to hold out for those- to keep searching until she found them.
For some reason I started crying, and then I spoke to my mom, "I'm sorry it didn't turn out for you. I'm sorry you didn't get what you wanted. I'm sorry you didn't get the true love and affection and attention you deserved."
And then I made a promise to my mom: "I promise to hold out for true love- the love that I deserve- to be seen and appreciated and loved for who I am."

And then I thought about my friends who are in relationships, who are married. I realized that their relationships aren't perfect- they aren't the idealized relationships that we imagine when we are little or even when we are in our twenties. They aren't always harmonious, it's not one person totally loving the other person and everyone getting along all the time. It's struggle and difficulty and people being themselves but it's also people listening to each other, learning from each other, adjusting as they learn about each other but also needing to be themselves- it's intimacy, it's sticking around to make things work, even when it's difficult.
And I realized that that was a real relationship. That at one point in our lives, we all have our illusions of love shattered- we see that it isn't what we thought, but that what we experience is a truer love, a love between two people trying to see each other, to understand each other, to make their lives work, together.

And then I was able to sing. I sang the lyrics again: It's love's illusions I recall, I really don't know love, at all.
And I saw that I was only seeing love's illusions- that I was only seeing my fantasy of a relationship, what I wanted in a relationship, not an actual relationship. If I wanted to experience real love, I needed to step out in to relationship- to falter, to make mistakes, to share myself, to allow someone to stick around even when I was 'undesirable.' And I saw that I could do this- I could look beyond love's illusions and experience real love between myself and another person.