Radically Wyrd, A Guide to Green Dog Love

Let me tell you, dear reader, what love, Green Dog style, is.
Remember that first glimmer of sunlight on a summer morning? Well, that’s not it. It’s more like the headlights of a car straight in front of you which you don’t notice until you realize you’re blinded by the clarity of the feeling that floods you, a feeling of gratitude and fear. You are flooded with relief that all those dreams were not mere imagination, a figment created by your wishful thinking and unlimited faith in the Universe. …
Not quite true.
A Green Dog in general believes that these things- Love, clear skin, winning the lottery, getting rid of the scent of garlic on your hands…- happen to other people. You know, the nice ones. The people who believe that it can actually happen.
So you try to rationalise it. It’s just your brain playing tricks on you, you say. It’s just a risk and it’s not worth taking, you say. How do you even know it’s L-O-V-E , you say. You don’t dare say the word or think it can apply to you. In this cynical world full of naysayers it’s easy enough to find someone who will agree.
Until that day. The day it dawns on you that you can run or hide from anything, except from yourself. You have to give in and admit it. That’s when you decide not to do anything about it. It overwhelms you.
So you let your days roll by in a haze of mixed sentiments, ranging from absolute cynicism to passionate belief. It makes you struggle to define your posture. Will you or will you not get round to DOING something? Are you going to let it pass you by? You think ‘What if it goes wrong?’. And then, ‘What if it goes right?’.
Finally, the optimist in you wins. You will give it a chance. You need to experience what lies ahead. Curiosity and a shaky sort of trust in your senses take the lead. You start to let your feelings show, scared to death and mystified of how this can happen to you. On the good days you bask in the warmth of your love and start to believe it. On the bad days you think of all the excellent reasons why no person in their right mind will stick by you through thick and thin because you are basically insufferable. Too loud, too bossy, too opinionated…
Most of the people you encounter will not, as a matter of fact, stand by you. You will be too weird and too much to handle.
Fast forward a few years and then…
One day in the most casual way you meet someone who actually ‘sees’ you. They see your insecurity and know that it is because you have endured many who have dropped the ball at the worst moments. They see how real and trustworthy you are. They don’t mistake your natural reserve for aloofness. They look at you as if they’d just won the lottery.
You start to think that perhaps it wasn’t that you were too much. Maybe it was the others who weren’t quite enough for you. They couldn’t handle the love you offered. They couldn’t know. They weren’t allowed to see you cry. It would have been a sign of trust and that has to be earned.
You finally come to the realization that the best love had to offer you was a mirror in which you looked at your heart and saw that it was beautiful, worthy, different and special. Your love is not for the weak, for the faint-hearted. It is a wild thing, a radical, powerful display of loyalty, tenderness and stubborn determination.
That’s how you know this love will be the last. It shows you the depth of your soul and the beauty in your heart. It cannot be replaced. It transcends you.

Radical