Thank you, Leonard Cohen, for giving me that quote to carry around with me every day, for my entire life, it has both helped and hindered me more than I can say. It has been said, I don't know by whom, originally, that falling in love is like driving a car at night, you can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole journey that way. Maybe that's true, but it is also true that 40% of all fatal car accidents happen at night, and can you really argue with those numbers? I am notorious, even amongst those who have only known me for a short time, for having the worst luck with love; and it has often been asked "really, why him?" And my sexual awareness is also well renowned, to put it mildly, and some of my sexual partners are even more...questionable, to some.
I suppose it's safe to say that love is different for everyone, and if there is anyone out there who can actually tell me, exactly, what love is...please teach me your ways, Jedi Master. But until then, I feel like we, as humans, simply seek the love we need most in the moment. We accept the love we think we deserve, but we also seek the love we think will cure our deepest ills, the one that will silence our demons and quiet our doubts. I feel that women, in general, have all felt at one point in their lives the desperation of lovelessness, even if it was completely self-imposed, and due to the pain of that feeling, drove their car-of-love right off the nearest overpass. Not all love is the right love, not all love is forever, not all love works...but that doesn't mean it's not real. I think we tend to forget, when everything goes straight to hell with no warning, that whatever kind of love we have is the love we have chosen, it's exactly the love we wanted when we got it.
I don't "fall in love" I crash into it, full speed, and maybe for me love is more like driving at night, in a foreign city, on ice. I am cruising with unfounded confidence, simply along for the ride, when I see it, the telltale flicker of headlights on crystals, and I have just enough time to panic. Then I am whirling out of control, the whole world goes sideways, full tailspin, fight or flight takes over and I try, against better instincts, to correct the skid, but it's too late. I see the median coming on like the goddamned horseman of the apocalypse, one last second of terror, muscles contract, brace for impact, and I hit. It has happened so many times, I have the whiplash to prove it.
I have loved, and been loved in return, many times, and though none of them stuck, they were all tragically, earth-shatteringly, heart-breakingly real, and they were all mine. When I think back to why I may have loved the people I did, and what I might have been searching for, the void they may have filled at the time, I can only really come up with small snippets to describe the mayhem that was my heart and mind at the time...but in the end, my cup was empty, and in their own way, they filled it.
So here are the answers, broken and partial though they are, this is all I have...
"Why did you love Him??"
He sang to me in the dark. He was Lost. I saw myself in him. He needed me. I needed him. I was Lost. He was a lot like my father. He was nothing like my father. He loved his children. I loved his children. He was nothing like my ex. We were young. Hormones. Rebound. He made me feel beautiful. He made me feel worthwhile. He left me a voicemail every morning. He said he loved me. I was out of control. I was afraid no one would ever love me. I was afraid no one else would ever love him. I don't do anything half-ass. No man had ever touched me so gently. He made me feel proud of myself. Sex. He made me laugh. We had everything in common. We had nothing in common. Because loving him, was the best thing I have ever done.
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