i'll be free to love you somewhere

wow. i am so amazed by what falling in love can do to a person! the giddy laughter, lightness of heart, pure joy and excitement at the prospect of seeing the person. it's all laughable when you think about it. yet, the feelings are so intense that people actually fall in love with the idea of being in love! i never understood before. i've been in love. once. it ended badly. we won't walk down that road. but nothing about that experience made me in a hurry to relive it.

yet here i am asking God and the universe to send me love that knocks me off my feet. and you know what? it's a pretty amazing feeling. who knew? well, i guess hollywood since they keep selling us the idea of kismet love in romcom after romcom. and then there are the fairytales who knew about the power of love. the point is that until now, i never did. the funny thing is that despite it ending badly the last go around, i have no fear about experiencing it now. it really can end horribly! i could end up crying my eyes out for weeks or months. i could be so distraught that i stop eating. i could spend an entire year reliving the experience. but even knowing that doesn't change my desire to fall in love. it might be dumb to admit this in a public forum but i'm already there. you can be witnesses to the fact that i am definitely in love. kind of seems like a roller coaster if you read the previous posts but i decided to stop letting the fear of rejection and unrequited love keep me from admitting my feelings now.

he might not be the one for me but trust me when i say i'm enjoying every bit of the time we spend together right now. he makes me laugh. we have great conversation. we have enough in common to spend a lifetime enjoying. we share a world view. we dream in a like manner. and we want a lot of the same things. i'm happy when we're together and i miss his smile and his voice when we're a part. i'd say i probably have it pretty bad. but i'm not ashamed of it anymore. in fact i'm enjoying it completely. and what's the crime in that?

Pain is inevitable

Pain is the inevitability of love. If you open your heart to someone, it is a huge possibility that it will be broken. That's just how it works. It sucks and the pain can really hurt deep and for a while, but it's part of the process. Trust me, I know a thing or two about it.

To be fair, my heart was only broken once. Since I've only been in love once, I think it balances out. Someone wise said that marriage is the closest thing to heaven and the closest thing to hell you will ever experience. I don't know for sure if that's true but I can imagine that being that close to someone could be a little like heaven and hell wrapped into one big messy ball of gush. Why are people in such a rush to walk down the aisle again?

Don't get me wrong, I want to get married and have that heaven/hell experience with the person that floats my boat just right. I just realize that I've never been in love with being in love. I don't want the romanticized version of it. I don't want the fairytale happy ending crap that is shoved down our throats. I deal in reality and it's a cold, cruel world out there waiting to shatter the fantasy of love and replace it with what it's really like to live with someone 24/7 and become one with them. It's not easy and everyone who thinks it is, is kidding themselves.

I am a product of divorce and that has always colored my views on marriage. I understand why my parents didn't stay together and I completely agree with the decision. I don't want the same thing for my family. My childhood was traumatic. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. So I approach love with my eyes wide open. I'm not wearing rose colored glasses. I'm not dreaming of a knight coming to whisk me away. I'm not dreaming of finding the one person in the entire universe who makes me feel complete. Life is not a fantasy.

I want someone who loves me whether I'm having a good day or not. I want someone who can live with all my flaws and imperfections and love me in spite of that. It's not easy to find that kind of love. It's not easy to reciprocate that kind of love. But when you find it, that's what's real. You might get hurt in the process of searching for it, but when you find it, I hope you have more heaven than hell. And I hope you find new reasons each day to hold on to it forever.