Limerence is a life stealer, a thief of opportunity and expansion. It offers a soporific hit of sexual and romantic intensity while emptying out the joy of a real life. It can feel so delicious, so enticing that many people lose themselves completely in its narcotising embrace.
People walk around as husks of their former selves, empty and dry as they become untethered by fantasy. The day to day tasks of living in the world become harder to manage when limerence truly takes hold. Friends are ignored, work responsibilities become onerous, conversations with loved ones seem boring. The only thing that remains worthwhile, is fantasy. Limerence calls to you, a siren whose caress can never be fully felt. As you sink into fantasy and seek the imaginary arms of your beloved, your real life suffers from intense neglect.
Can you wake from the dream? Usually this happens with catastrophe. A partner leaves. A job is lost. Friends no longer call. Finally you become aware of the emptiness that greets you in reality. Even then, the thought of losing limerence can feel unbearable. It may be your only constant, your only companion. Can you give it up to live? To live in the real world, which is slow, and painful, at times sad, and where you will not be perfect or experience sex and love at the peak of intensity.
It is a fall into withdrawal and loss that greets someone brave enough to give the dream up. Life is no longer tinged with sleep, it is felt and real. It is sometimes dull, ordinary, frustrating and stupid. It is also beautiful and tender, and filled with true touch. A hand that takes your own, a smile you don't have to conjure in your mind, a tear of salt. The physical reality of a life lived.
תגובות