As Long As Your Love Don’t Change

Musiq Soulchild Taught Me Unconditional Love

I remember watching Musiq Soulchild’s “Dontchange” music video as a kid.

I don’t know what it was on (I assume BET). And I don’t remember how old I was (let’s say younger than 10). But I remember loving whenever the music video would come on partially because I loved the song (Musiq’s harmonies are unmatched) and mostly because Musiq is made up to look like an old man.

I love old Black men. They seem so sure, and they’re always good for a one liner — and also they just look so cool. Shoutout to old Black dudes. I can’t wait to be one. But I digress.

Musiq Soulchild’s “Dontchange” music video felt like the greatest example of romantic love to me as a kid and what it means to stick by someone — and that’s because the music video plays out like a children’s book.

There’s no question what the music video is about. It’s simply the tale of a man loving a woman through good times and tragedy, them growing old together, accented by Musiq singing:

I’ll love you when your hair turns gray, girl
I’ll still want you if you gain a little weight, yeah
The way I feel for you will always be the same
Just as long as your love don’t change

There’s no question what the music video is about. But as I’ve gotten older, I question unconditional love — and whether it’s enough of a reality that it can stand for me to question it.

Growing up, I mostly heard unconditional love used in relation to my parents and God. My parents divorced when I was young, so I understood unconditional love in two ways — that even though my parents couldn’t stay together, they would always love me and always love each other because I’m theirs. It makes me wonder, are the reasons why we love someone and the conditions on which we love them one in the same?

And then there was God, oh God, our unconditionally loving God. For God so loved the world. How he (?) shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. I learned that God loves us because God made us, because God loves us. And that nothing could separate us from God’s love, while also learning about hell, where I’d be away from God if I didn’t accept Jesus’ sacrifice. I’m sure there’s some theological workaround, but it feels like a condition.

Maybe in that sense, Musiq Soulchild’s “Dontchange” is a more human expression, more realistic expression of unconditional love — an unconditional love that acknowledges its conditions, even if there’s only one: “As long as your love don’t change.”

And I sit with that line and fumble it around in my hands, examining the beautiful and not-so-beautiful pieces of it.

On one hand, it’s Musiq acknowledging that his woman’s love is so good, he doesn’t want any different, diluted, version of it. But on the other hand, in Musiq saying, “Let me reassure you, darlin’, that my feelings are truly unconditional,” there’s this idea about loving your partner no matter what.

At least in the United States, this expression of unconditional love is deeply ingrained. Even in my wife and I’s wedding vows, we promised to be true to one another in sickness and in health and love each other all the days of our lives. And while I believe in these words with everything I am, I interrogate “no matter what,” for, in its absoluteness, there are scenarios in which it might not be safe for someone to stay, to remain — or things that may have to get overlooked along the way, requiring one’s silent sign-off.

Maybe it’s grace in the Christian sense of the word — loving someone despite their sins, whether or not they deserve it. But Christianity has also created environments almost perfectly conducive for harming those on the margins.

Is grace absolution? And if it is, to what extent is grace a virtue?

The late Joan Didion & her husband John Gregory Dunne

As I sit with Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, her book about processing the death of her husband of 23 years, one thing becomes plainly clear: change is inevitable.

Didion’s book begins with these words:

“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant.”

Life changes — which is to say, love changes. Because we, as humans, change. And how we learn to relate to one another changes.

I’m coming around to the idea that the type of love ethic I want to practice is one that lets people come and go, that gives people the freedom to change however that might manifest. As long as I’m alive, I’m here and will choose to engage and accept when and where I can.

We are all changing and harming and loving, giving and receiving — living. And I want to give people — those I love and even those I don’t know — the permission and space to exist fully however that looks for them.

And yes, that might mean harm is caused and someone needs to separate themselves from the other — whether temporarily or permanently — but it must happen that way that we might continue to exist fully, not forcing each other to remain where there is no longer anything for us.

The music video ends with Musiq Soulchild sitting next to the actor portraying his wife, both of them made up to look old. They’re positioned in front of the camera as if they’re being interviewed for a home video I assume is being filmed by their children. The wife longingly looks at Musiq, as he imparts his final words:

“If you find someone that you know you love, just love that person. God will see you through the rest of the way.”