Katherine Beckett (KBPOV)
Later that night, after the second round of sex, Castle passed out; I tried to sleep but the sleep didn't come. I spent a couple of hours just rolling from a side to another, trying to find a comfortable position where my body would just fall asleep but also, my mind wouldn't shut up; I always hated when that happened, when my mind would start running all the possibilities and would start looking for answers inside myself, a place where I am sure that never had them, but my mind was a person of her own, she rarely belonged to me, always having a thought of her own; it was really funny how a super control freak like myself, couldn't control her own mind.
Anyway, that night my mind wasn't try to discover nothing too difficult, for a lot of people, but for me, it was pretty difficult. I am sure that many of us have difficult with the subject and I am also sure that you know which subject it is. And if you thought love, you my friend, is right. After over a decade not feeling it, I wasn't sure anymore what it was. Through our life we hear so many different definition, so many opinions on the matter that we just don't know anymore. I guess that every person has his own opinion of what it is; each one of us reads the life in a different way than the other, which is something extremely important, since it brings the range of differences that we today can see in our world.
I being no different from another human being, no matter how many times I thought I was, read life in a different way. Each event which happened in my life was a catalyst to change my perspective of life, to look at it from a different point of view; I don't need to tell you which event was the biggest catalyst of all, do I? Castle was also a catalyst on his own, came to my life in time where probably I needed a little changing of point of view, with his personality, his joy of life that I had lost so many years ago and his way of seeing the world is so different of mine, which was one of the things that most attracted me towards him: our differences over the perspective of the world, one so magic and the other so pessimist.
After the couple of hours that I spent rolling from a side to another I just gave up, slowly I got out of bed doing my best not to wake up Castle and went to the kitchen; there I made myself a cup of hot chocolate, the best beverage for hard times, and sat in front of the window looking at the city below. How many people were in love at that exact moment in New York? How many was dreaming of finding real love? And what was real love? When did we know it isn't real love? And the best of them all, what was love?
Each branch of the human knowledge had a meaning for the word love; the literature over a thousand years has been talking about it, giving it meanings that I wasn't sure it was the right one. Each author had his own idea of what love is and was, each time in history had a different meaning for it, depending on the way the society thought people should behave.
Trying to discover the mystery which was making my mind go crazy, I used the best tool that we have, the internet. Looking around on it, I found different thoughts on the subject from different authors; the quotes that made sense to me at the time with what I was feeling, I will share with you:
What is love but acceptance of the other, whatever he is. – Anaïs Nin
It was exactly how I felt about Castle, I didn't care if he had a third nipple, which he didn't, I would always….love him. Such a strange feeling, love someone.
There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. – C. S. Lewis
This was exactly what I did with myself for so many years after my mother death and my father starting a new family, I locked up my heart in some place where nobody could find him, where it would be safe so I would never feel what I felt when my mother died and my father started a new family. I didn't want to go through that heart break all again, I made a promise to myself, to never again feel the same way that I felt that day when the police officer told me that my mother was dead.
"I no longer believed in the idea of soul mates, or love at first sight. But I was beginning to believe that a very few times in your life, if you were lucky, you might meet someone who was exactly right for you. Not because he was perfect, or because you were, but because your combined flaws were arranged in a way that allowed two separate beings to hinge together." ―Lisa Kleypas
This was what Castle was to me, someone who wasn't perfect, but even his flaws made him perfect for me; like I said before, his point of view of life, so different of my own made him a different human being from me, making us in some weird way the perfect match. Also, I never believed in soul mates, the world is too random for something like a person who was made for you, it's too weird; and love at first sight has another name, it is called lust, from what I gathered from my researches, you love the person and to love a person you need to know her, spend time with her, when you see someone for the first time, you don't know the person, you see her exterior, you think the person is pretty, hot, or any adjective you can think of.
"Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who's in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It's like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven't seen in a long time." ―Haruki Murakami
And this last one was the only explanation that I found for the changes which I was going through. After my mother's death and the consequences of her death, I changed a lot; and during these changes I lost some parts of myself, and learned unconsciously that to avoid feeling so much like what I was feeling at the time, I had to guard my heart, put in somewhere nobody could find, and I did it. But after so many years living that way, I was getting tired, not that I knew that I was getting tired, I was and am a stubborn person; looking for it unconsciously or not, I found Castle who had all the pieces that I was missing since my change so many years ago.
In science, love is nothing more than a bunch of neurotransmitters that make us feel love and every other emotion that we feel. Psychology, also a branch of science, has an extended study of what is love, why it is important for us and what really happens with our brain. If I had studied psychology in the university instead of Law I would explain it all to you, but I don't have the knowledge necessary for it; the truth is that until these days' scientists can't really explain what really love is and why it makes such difference in our life.
For many years I was, and still am, a skeptical person and also practical. I spent many years handling divorcing couples and I saw what love, or the lack of it, can do to a person, it isn't pretty; probably it was one of the reasons why I stood far away from love as possible.
After so many hours thinking about the subject, reading about it, and trying to understand what I was feeling I came to the conclusion that I probably was in love with Castle. Such a strange feeling, such a strange sound coming from my mouth and brain, I said it out loud a couple of times: "in love with Castle" just to test the sound of it, just to be sure that I wouldn't burn just for saying it like a witch burns when she enters the church.
Just to be sure of myself, the next day I had already schedule a session with Mackenzie and was going to use it to talk about the conclusions that I made during the night; before going back to bed, I tried the sound of it again: "In love with Castle"; it was a heavy statement, being in love with someone brings so many risks that I wasn't sure I was ready for, but ready or not, I would have to deal with them; Castle accepted the risks and embraced it, at for him was worst, he didn't choose a normal woman, nope, he chose a broken one; at the start he wasn't even sure if I was ever going to love him back, but he loved me anyway, not because he wanted to be loved back, but because, somehow, he had fallen in love with me and I read that love is unselfish thing; you never love expecting to be loved back. Castle was a perfect example of this definition. He loved me without expecting me to love him back, he even loved my flaws and he was happy with his decision, he was content with his decision and being loved is an amazing feeling, knowing that someone who don't have to love you, but loves you anyway and I wanted Castle to feel it too.
Hey guys, I really hope you liked this chapter, I searched a lot about the subject before writing about it, also, if you like the subject I highly recommend Essays in Love, it is wonderful book that talks about love using a philosophical way, it is amazing!
If you can, please review!
I found so many good quotes and a lot of them didn't fit the story, but I liked to share with you, so here they are:
"People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave. A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master…" ―Elizabeth Gilbert
"I do not trust people who don't love themselves and yet tell me, 'I love you.' There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt." ―Maya Angelou
"You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think that because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right — that his judgement and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Don't. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn't be like that. Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can't even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? You go up top and what do you see? His head. The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, beacuse the clouds let him; they don't wrap him up. They let him keep his head up high, free, with nothing to hide him or bind him. You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself." ―Toni Morrison
"Anyone who loves in the expectation of being loved in return is wasting their time." ―Paulo Coelho
"Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies." – Aristotle
"Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage." – Ambrose Bierce
"Sometimes love means letting go when you want to hold on tighter." ―Melissa Marr
"We're all a little weird, and life's a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love." — Dr. Seuss
"The opposite of love it not hate; it's indifference." — Elie Wiesel
"Love is kind of like when you see a fog in the morning, when you wake up before the sun comes out. It's just a little while, and then it burns away… Love is a fog that burns with the first daylight of reality." – Charles Bukowski