I'm beginning to think that I've never been in love before...
I know you think I'm being dramatic. I'm aware I have a habit of dramatizing certain aspects of my life for your enjoyment as well as my own personal vanity. However, in this case, I swear that's not what I'm doing. I'm serious. I'm seriously questioning. Were my feelings for those who entered my life in the past real or just a byproduct of their unyielding love and devotion to me? Did I feel it, or did I simply allow them to talk me into it?
I don't want to belittle my past relationships but I'm having a hard time remembering one instance where I felt love, real unwavering down to the depths of my soul love, for the person I was with...before they felt it for me.
I remember my first boyfriend. I met him when I was 16 years old. I had just started dating the year before and was enjoying playing the field. That's probably where I developed my legendary self restraint. I was a kid and loved being one. I just wanted to date and smooch on a few cute boys. Sex never crossed my mind and having a boyfriend seemed unnecessary and silly. I guess some things never change...
I met My First at a pay phone in Redondo Beach. I was calling another guy with Daria and a second girlfriend in tow. The plan was for the guys to pick us up and take us to a house party. While we were waiting a 3 car caravan full of dudes pulled up next to us. They had seen us waiting by the phones, and decided to pull over and hit us up. Oh the 90's. The era of beepers and boulevard cruising...
One of the drivers got my number and a few dates later he was trying to lock me down as his one and only. I made the girlfriend/boyfriend titles almost impossible to acquire and the I love yous all but in impossible to utter. I didn't want either but he was so persistent about both. I finally gave into the titles and a few months later gave away my chastity as well. But even after all that the words, "I love you" never crossed my mouth. He held back too. I suppose he didn't want to ruin the progress he had made with me. Until one day, out of no where, I decided to say it.
I'm not sure why I did. I wasn't feeling it. It's not that I didn't care for him. I did. But there were things about him that bothered me.
When we first met I wasn't interested. I mean the guy was a total cupid! A baby face. So not my thing. He was over 6 feet tall which was nice, but he was much to muscular for me. I've always been more of a tall lean type of girl. Not really into the beefy thing. And he was much to sweet and sensitive. I like my men to be men. Let me be the girly one. He hardly spoke in public. Not shy, just quiet. I hated being the spokesperson in our relationship.
But what he did have going for him was his total love and unchecked devotion to me. He thought I was wonderful and treated me accordingly. I mean what's not to love about that? So I eventually said the words. I grabbed him by the face one day and pulled him to me and said, "I love you."
His reaction surprised me. He gasped. Actually gasped! I remember him pulling me into his arms and saying, with much more passion then I had been able to muster, "I love you too!"
The guy teared up. He actually cried! Did I mention he was almost 20? Leave it to me to find a six packed, yoked up, sensitive pretty boy, VIRGIN, to fall in love with me.
I remember thinking that I should be crying too. Shouldn't I be filled with the same warmth and passion that he was exuding from every pore in his body? The problem was, I wasn't.
I eventually got there. I eventually loved him just as deeply as he loved me. Or did I? Does it still count if you eventually learn to love someone because they love you?
The Ex told me he loved me first. It wasn't nearly as sweet of a moment. He was a very matter of fact kind of guy. A real mans man. He simply said, "I love you man. I know I do."
Funny. I don't even remember when I said it back. I know it wasn't immediate...
Wait! I do remember! I said it to him during sex. I planned it. I wanted to say the words during a moment of passion. Wow. It's all coming back to me now. The only way I was able to duplicate the same type emotional energy My First had displayed to me during his I love yous for The Ex was by faking it with a pseudo I love you orgasm. That's what I gave The Ex. Fake passion clouded by my pheromones. And it worked. He bought it. And eventually, so did I.
Huge Asshole was next. He loved me very early on. Lord knows I was in no place to be feeling anything as deep as love for someone at the time. I remember the first time he said it to me. Well he didn't say so much as attack me with his feelings.
We were sitting in my car. We had just left a wedding. His fathers actually. He had married for the second time to a women he had met on Match.com the year before. No shit.
I was a hit. To this day I still talk to several of his family members in England. He was so in love with me that night! I was dressed to the nines as usual. Everyone in the room couldn't stop gushing over me or us. He had me out on the dance floor for most of the night...gazing into my eyes and singing softly in my ear. It was so unlike him! For the first time in our 2 month courtship I stopped. I saw him. I saw that he was looking at me the way the others had. The way My First had so regularly and the way The Ex would when he thought I wasn't looking. He made me notice him and acknowledge that there might be something more here than just a good time. Up to this point I had been enjoying the fact that I could relax with him without having to worry about either of us falling for eachother. This night made me hesitate.
We got into an argument in my car after the wedding. He was frustrated. With me. Apparently his uncle had pulled him aside at some point during the night and told him, "Your in love with that girl."
"No no. We just started dating recently," he told him.
"Look at me," his uncle told him. "You. Are. In. Love. With that girl."
His words made Huge Asshole pause. He stopped arguing. Until he was alone with me. We argued for over an hour until it finally came out. The words he finally realized he needed to say to me.
I still remember the pain in his voice when he yelled, "Why won't you just let me fucking love you!?"
I was speechless. I didn't know what to say. I mean what would I say to something like that?
I knew I didn't love him. Not the way he loved me. I wasn't ready. Besides the fact I was only a few months out from my separation from The Ex, the guy was 8 years my junior! What was I supposed to do with that? How could I responsibly love him? How was that fair? I had lived so much of my life already and he was just getting started. I didn't want to show someone the world. I wanted to be with someone who could show me the world I hadn't seen yet. I didn't want to start over with someone. I wanted to include myself into someones life who was already living.
"Look," I said to him. "I care for you. I really do. But you have to understand. I'm in the middle of a divorce. Which means technically I'm still married. How am I supposed to have a boyfriend when I still have a husband?"
He calmed down a bit. I continued trying to sooth the storm I could see churning inside of him.
"I don't want to say anything I don't mean. All I can tell you is that I'm really happy with you. Everything is simple and easy and sweet. I'm just going through something right now and it's taking everything I have to hold myself together. I don't want to pull you into this," I finish.
"I understand," he replies. "It was just frustrating tonight to hear him say that and know that you pull back from me so much. I just want...forget it. Nevermind."
I sigh and pull him to me. I wanted to comfort him. I wanted to ease his pain. The pain caused by me. He didn't understand that at the time, I didn't know how to allow myself to be loved...or how to love someone else freely in return.
Again, it took time. It was hard. We argued and broke up several times. It's difficult loving someone who doesn't love you in return. But he stuck it out and poured his emotional energy on me until I eventually did feel something. I grabbed onto that feeling and twisted it into what I yearned for it to be. I turned it into love. For him. To make him happy. I told him I loved him...Right after we had broken up for the 5th time since the wedding. Right after I had just finished a weekend locked in the arms of The Kid.
I had just flown back from spending two days with The Kid. I can't remember exactly what happened but it had been the first and only time The Kid had ever pissed me off. I remember thinking, "What am I doing? Why am I wasting my time with this ass in another state when I have a man at home who loves me?"
So I came home to Huge Asshole and I said it. Well, I tried to say it. I was having a hard time finding the right words. He was hovering over me watching me struggle when he whispered in my ear, "I don't know why you keep holding back? I don't know what you're so afraid of? Don't you realize that I feel the same way about you?"
He was right. I knew he loved me. It was only right that I should love him back right?
So I said it, "I had a lot of time to think on my trip and I realize now that I do. I love you."
He gasped. Just like My First had. He pulled me into his arms and said, "I love you too baby."
It was done. And over time, I did learn to love him. Didn't I?
Last but not least there was Nutty as a Fruitcake. My rebound. The epitome of forced love and affinity.
He told me he loved me on our 4th date. The crazy part is, I knew he meant it. Everything with Nutty happened very quickly. He's the only person I've ever allowed to call me his girlfriend from the get go. I had to. He didn't date. He was either with a girl or he wasn't. I was still reeling from the latest and worst of my break ups with Huge Asshole. I didn't want to go back to Huge A, or the dramas of our relationship so I dove into the overpowering, emotionally draining love of Nutty.
He just flat out asked me a few weeks into our relationship if I loved him. No one had ever asked me that before! I mean how rude can you be?
I told him I did. I'm not sure why.
"Yes I do," I told him. And to make sure he knew I meant it, I teared. For his benefit. Because I knew it would be more impactful if I did.
I think I wanted it to be easy for once. I wanted to mean it. I didn't want loving someone to be a struggle. Nutty loved me. He worshipped me. He treated me like a princess. I should have loved him in return shouldn't I of? So I faked it until I thought I did. That's when he placed me on a pedestal...and then left me there.
I have my answer. It's true. I've never loved someone before. You know how I know? Because love shouldn't be hard. You shouldn't have to think about it. You shouldn't have to talk yourself into it.
I've spent countless hours trying to decipher my feelings about the men in my life. It's always been a struggle for me to determine which feelings were mine and which were theirs.
I naturally hold back in my relationships. I protect myself. I build a wall around my heart and only pretend to allow it to drop for someone else. To this day, the wall still stands firmly in place.
Until now. And I know the exact moment when it happened. Because in that moment there was no debate. I knew it and felt it with every ounce of my being...
I was laying next to The Rocker. I was comforting him. He had heard some terrible news about a loved one earlier that night and was lost in thought about what to do next. I remember feeling the pain pouring off of him. I wanted to comfort him. I wanted to hold him in my arms and stop the pain from touching him. I was looking at his face and that's when I felt it. Cupids arrow. That little shit shot me straight through my heart...at the most inappropriate of moments.
I gasped. Just like My First had. Just like Huge Asshole. But this time, I was the one who felt it. The wind was knocked out of me for once.
The Rocker turned and looked at me. He saw it happen. He saw the look on my face. He wasn't sure of what he was seeing but he felt the change. In me. I felt it too. In that moment I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I loved this man.
"What is it?" he asks me.
I wanted to say it. But I couldn't. It wasn't right. This moment wasn't about me. I tightened my mouth and shook my head in a silent, "Nothing."
He let it slide. He left that night without hearing the truth. I didn't sleep.
I loved him and I wanted more than anything to tell him so! I wanted him to know. I wanted to say it before he said it to me. I wanted him to know that I loved him regardless if he felt the same way about me. I wanted him to know that I felt this way freely, without help from him. I loved him not because I had to. Not because I had learned to. But because I just did. It was a truth and a feeling and simply the way things were.
I tried to tell him the next time I saw him. I couldn't do it. I didn't know how to say it. I had never done this before! I was afraid. Not of not hearing it in return. That part wasn't important to me. Real love is selfless. Real love doesn't need validation or reciprocation. I was afraid of not being believed. This was important to me. Not just because it was an important turning point in our relationship, but because this was an important turning point in my life. My worse fear was for it to be taken as a joke or to be written off as another silly girl confusing amazing sex and affection for genuine love.
I could feel! I could love! On my own. Not because I felt guilty or obligated. But because I had met someone so wonderful and perfect for me that my heart had reached out and broken down my wall all on its own...the freedom of it all felt amazing!
I finally forced myself to say it the third night. I had to. I hadn't slept in days. Cupids arrow was stuck in my heart and the only way to get it out was to share the poison with the center of my love and affections.
I was laying next to him on his bed when I said, "I need to tell you something, but I'm not sure how to say it."
I looked over at him. He was all ears. I wanted to laugh. Just moments before he had been exhausted and ready to pass out. Now? He was propped up on his elbow, his green eyes open wide. His mouth set in a half smile. God he's sexy.
"Ok, concentrate," I thought. I looked away and tried it again.
"You should know, I have never ever felt this way first about someone and I've never been the first to say this...," I know. It was definitely the worst I love you speech ever but I knew it was too late turn back, so I continued, "...and even though I'm not totally comfortable with this or us or what I'm feeling just yet, and it will probably take me some time before I can say it freely and be ok with it... I'm pretty sure that I've... fallen in love with you."
I did it! Without crying. Without sex. Without being badgered or chased or convinced. It was done.
I forced myself to look over at The Rocker. He was smiling. He seemed happy. He looked at me lovingly and then leaned over and gave me a kiss. It wasn't gentle nor was it erotic. It was heated and sweet and distinctly him.
He pulled away and said to me, "Well I think that maybe I might sort of be in love with you too."
I laughed. Everything was how it should be. No drama. No faking. Just my bumbling confession and The Rockers dry ever present humour.
It was a moment. It still is. Everytime I see him I think the same thing. "I love this man."
It feels amazing! Over 30 years and countless relationships later it finally happened for me.
I fell in love.
Goodnight Dear Reader. I hope you sleep as deeply as I do now. And please think about what I've said. Don't live your life borrowing the feelings of another. Wait for the arrow. Wait for the gasp. Wait for your Rocker.
Thank you Cupid. Your a wise little shit. Now take this damn arrow out of my heart, it stings like a bitch.
WCC
No comments:
Post a Comment