{"id":1934,"date":"2013-02-13T18:06:20","date_gmt":"2013-02-14T02:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.wordpress.com\/?p=1934"},"modified":"2013-02-13T18:06:20","modified_gmt":"2013-02-14T02:06:20","slug":"i-shall-wear-purple-at-sea-02132013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=1934","title":{"rendered":"I Shall Wear Purple \u2013 At Sea \u2013 [02\/13\/2013]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"578611_443207679065259_1295493607_n\"<\/a>Sometimes, when the moon is full and the crickets sing, I dream of a love that even time itself will lie down and be still for.<\/i><\/p>\n

My personal life is not something I go out of my way to discuss in these pages. It\u2019s neither the time nor the place for it and those who need to know certain things already do. But sometimes there are thoughts that spill out of me that need sharing, that dance around the edges of over-sharing, while still staying carefully on the \u2018right\u2019 side of the line.<\/p>\n

With the Valentine\u2019s Day ball coming tomorrow the ship is decked to the rafters in hearts and flowers. It\u2019s difficult to get away from the conventionality of it all, the expectation that you will have a normal life, a \u2018normal\u2019 relationship etc etc. Valentine\u2019s Day paints a perfect picture of romantic love, exactly as the greeting card companies tell us that it should be. It\u2019s a beautiful image of pink and white and red that\u2019s laced with just the right amount of sincerity. All very neat, and all very pretty.<\/p>\n

And all totally wrong.<\/p>\n

Because that\u2019s not what love is.<\/p>\n

Love is not pastel and perfect. Love is wonderful and beautiful and messy and unconventional. Love is fights and massive misunderstandings and tears and make-ups, love is being there for each other even when the other person is driving you somewhere well beyond insane; love is long distance phone calls that talk about absolutely nothing because you\u2019re talking just to hear the other person\u2019s voice. Love is not<\/i> talking for days on end because you know you don\u2019t need<\/i> to. Love is friendship, and sisterhood and families. Love is not having to say you\u2019re sorry and having to say you\u2019re sorry all the bloody time.<\/i> Love is a beautiful maddening paradox that you can\u2019t pin down because it keeps flying away from you when you try to put a label on it.<\/p>\n

For a long time, I fell victim to the labels, just like everyone else,\u00a0 I felt like I had to fit myself into a box that would be considered socially acceptable. I tried to be something I wasn\u2019t and tried to believe something I didn\u2019t so that I could fit into those labels, wear those nametags. But the thing is, I don\u2019t. I don\u2019t fit.\u00a0 My life, my relationship, my friendships, my love and all that goes with it\u2026it\u2019s not conventional – but get this, no one\u2019s is<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Love is what makes you and the person (or people) you love happy. And to hell with whether the rest of the world understands or accepts it, as long as you aren\u2019t hurting yourself or anyone else.<\/p>\n

Which is why, were it not because of the fact that the uniform for tomorrow night\u2019s ball is prescribed, were it not for the fact that I am required<\/i> by my employers to don that perfect red satin ball gown\u2026I would wear purple<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes, when the moon is full and the crickets sing, I dream of a love that even time itself will lie down and be still for. My personal life is not something I go out of my way to discuss … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,11,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-below-the-waterline","category-grand-world-voyage-2013","category-reflections-below-the-waterline"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-vc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}