i think, or i should say, as far as i know, or…
ok.
let me try to restate.
sipping on yet another glass of a passable red plonk, smoking my last cigarette before sleep, i can say with all the certainty of any other young man unsure of himself that i’ve been in love with two women in my life.
i’m thinking about this now, at the cusp of the witching hour because firstly, love, in all its forms holds such fascination for me, but even more so… the idea of being in love (and out of it) has been surrounding me for the past few days.
a friend of mine, cynical and as flippant as i am, fell in love, mad stupid irrational love recently, only to have his heart broken by the fundamentally tenuous nature of the situation. another who was once a directionless as i seem to be these days has discovered the condition, both for a woman and for a new city and has gotten so much joy, fulfillment and such an amazing sense of purpose out of it. another prides herself on having never been heartbroken, but only because, sadly (in my opinion) she’s never been in love in the first place. recently, i counseled another friend to break it off with a young gent because he was in that utterly selfish/less state, but she wasn’t and couldn’t be. another, virginal man-child who i got drunk for the first time with a long island iced tea shot and a shirley temple, doesn’t miss it, or sex, because he’s never experienced either, to his detriment (is it just me or is that like a blind man saying he doesn’t care about colors, because he’s never seen them?)
the last proto-relationship i was in, i broke it off because she was in love, and i wasn’t. couldn’t be. still too in love with the girl(s) that got away. hell, i still occasionally wake from dreaming, startled at the fact that her head is not resting beside mine, in the lopsided crook that my battered arms make.
love has such a fucking hold on me. like, i believe it does most people. i think it’s just poets who like to make a big deal out of it… both from traditional preoccupation/expectation and because we indulge in the masochistic unearthing of our feelings.
it’s been two years or more since the last girl i loved said goodbye.
and i don’t believe i’ll ever really stop loving her. not completely. am i ‘over’ her? as far as i know, i am. i’m ready to move into a “mature adult relationship.” but i think part of that readiness for sought after maturity is the acknowledgement that other people have claimed space in your heart.
i’ve bandied about the theory that we, as human beings, are made up more often than not from the impressions (or at least our understanding of) that others have left in our lives. we are the ultimate pictorial montages. every person that walks into and out of our lives leaves their mark, for good or for ill. a smudge marked by both presence and absence.
love, both romantic and otherwise, burns itself onto us. otherwise how could so many people be defined by love or the lack thereof? i don’t think it’s possible to no longer just stop having feelings for a person. or at least, it’s never happened in my life. sure, feelings can morph. love often does. infatuation burns so brightly that it either creates fallow ground for a deep abiding love to grow, or else it scorches the earth and truly leaves nothing behind for the foreseeable future.
now i’m going to be off.
two posts in a single day.
maggie, you must be proud.
now back to finishing this bottle and hoping somehow i can wake up early for class tomorrow. both jits and real world class.
hopefully, i’ll get up the chutzpah to write more tomorrow.
maybe ever post picatures.
probably not picatures.
but you never know.
oh and by the by, i am still in nyc full time for the folks asking. and can i just say… fuck broken keys on this keyboard.
oh, and as i go off to try to drunkenly talk someone out of their horribly mistimed depressive event… can i just say, it don’t rain but it fucking pours.