𝔏𝔬𝔳𝔢, 𝔏𝔞𝔲𝔯𝔢𝔫 ✒︎ Camren

Hedone

Camila's POV

Hedone (noun)
-The Greek goddess of sensual pleasures. She is the daughter of Eros and Psyche and the granddaughter of Aphrodite.

***

Aristotle identified 'Hedone' as one of the two elements or components of pathe, with the other being lype or pain. The philosopher described pathe in these words: "Let the emotions be all those things on account of which people change their minds and differ in regard to their judgments, and upon which attend pain and pleasure."

With great pleasure comes great pain.

My mother always knew that deep within her, but she paid no mind to it. But eventually she experienced what that great pain was. When she met my father, Sebastian, twenty four years ago, they had fallen in love so quickly. Over her centuries of being alive, she had met many men, whom she had fallen in love with, but none were like my father. He was different, or so she said.

Out of this great love, I was born.

Her great pleasure.

But she lost her one true love.

Her great pain.

I know I always served as a reminder of what could've been even though neither of my parents told me, but I felt it within the fibres of my body, I felt an ache. See, its impractical for a god to be with a mortal. My mother would've had to give up her role on Mount Olympus but she didn't want that, she loved what she did, but she also loved my father.

They say, if you love something set it free, and that's what she did. She knew that she couldn't have made him happy the way he deserved, despite his protests, his pleas, she ignored them.

My father knew who she was. It was the first time my mother had ever told someone, probably because she trusted him. He didn't care.

He loved her.

To this day, I know he still harbours some feelings for her. I can see it in his eyes, but he'll never admit it. Not even to himself.

I didn't want to be like my parents. I didn't want to meet someone and have to let them go. I'm selfish in a sense, because the one greatest thing on earth is love, and I'll be lucky enough to find it.

Why would I want to let it go?

I always knew, within me that I was destined to find some sort of great love. I didn't know who they were, but every time I would think about it; about finding love, i felt the person.

I knew they were out there.

I just couldn't wait to find who ever they were. That was something I envied about my mother, about my grandfather and even my great grandmother to an extent. They all found the person who they were destined to be with, even though my mother had to leave hers behind, she felt the purest and most selfless emotion; love.

I saw the way it broke my mother, though.

She had to choose between her two greatest joys, and I knew deep down, she would've chosen my father in a heartbeat. But she didn't want to part with her duty.

I'm afraid that one day, my person might have to choose between me and something that they love. I would want them to choose me, I really would, but I couldn't live with myself if they gave up something so important to them for me.

I couldn't ask them to choose.

Your feelings won't magically go away when someone shatters your heart. You can't wake up the next day after having your heart torn out and hate their guts and feel completely whole again.

It doesn't work like that.

Getting over someone can take much longer than you can ever anticipate. Time will pass, boy will it pass. Situations are going to change. You won't be the same person you were when you got your heart broken, believe me, that changes people.

You'll hear your friends tell you that you deserve so much better, and that you're better off without them. You might even start to believe those words, even though deep down, you still crave their presence and yearn for their love.

Your head may know that you no longer want anything to do with them, but your heart? You'll have a harder time convincing it. Your heart is the one begging you, pleading with you to text them, to go see them, reminding you how much you love them.

It's strange really, because you can be so heartbroken, and then you can find yourself falling more and more in love with the person.

Love is such a strange but yet, a beautiful thing that we get to experience, but I'm just still so scared of falling.

It can be hard to accept that the person you love is no longer in your life, but what's harder is when you finally realise that they're not coming back.

They are never going to surprise you with a happily ever after.

***

"You have to remember that loving someone doesn't always mean that you're meant to be together."

I looked at my mother in confusion, what was she talking about? Aphrodite was the goddess of love, and she was her grandmother, shouldn't love be in our favour?

"But grandpa is Eros, mi̱téra," I told her, but she just sighed and looked away from me. We would always have these conversations and I would never be able to understand them. I was only six after all.

My mother's pet tiger, Zara was sitting at her feet. She was extremely friendly...well to me, anyway. We lived in Greece, but not Mount Olympus. My mother didn't want me to grow up there, not until she believed that I was capable of making my own decisions.

I knew who I was.

I knew who my family was.

It was complicated in a sense, but I understood what we were, I just couldn't understand why my mother couldn't be with my father.

Wasn't love supposed to be everlasting?

"When you're older, my darling, you'll understand," she snapped her fingers and one of my mother's help came. She had three; Jessie, Ava and Selena. They would take turns in 'babysitting' me whenever my mother was busy. "Jessie, can you take Camila to library, I have something to attend to, I'll be home before dinner."

My mother stooped to my height and opened her arms for a hug.

"I love you."

She placed a kiss on my forehead, smiling at me. "I love you too, Camila. You are my light in the darkness."