This chunk of text was originally written in answer to a friend's query about love a couple of years ago. I liked the answer then, and I like it now.
Here goes:
Have I ever been IN LOVE?
I love a lot of people. I have loved pets. I love smells and sounds. I have never felt the type of love that I found/feel for my amazing son before, and as I suspect that things are always different in the timeframe--even if I have another child or three, I'd love them equally yet differently.
I don't know how to measure love.
But you are talking about--IN LOVE--meaning head-over-heels-completely-balls-out-screaming-I-don't-know-what-the-fuck-I-am-doing IN LOVE.
See. I am glad I am a boy. Balls out never sounds the same fer girls.
Hey-Zues-Christos!
That IS a tough one. Glad you don't go for the easy stuff.
Remember, I have that Y thing in my chromosomal-pile and introspection feels like work and makes me all crawly. Grin.
Let's try anyway, shall we?
I have been IN LOVE twice. I have never fallen out of love--and I wonder if that is possible for me. I just get to view it now-in-retrospect from the point in time where it was most vivid.
There were times that I thought I was in love, and that was the infatuation stage, the lust stage, or just a fantasy that didn't live up to its overall expectation....those were able to weed themselves out pretty quickly. Up to a few months and no major heartache beyond feeling loss of a prospective love that wasn't there.
Trying to discover whether/if I was/am (as these things are very much a Zen kind of in-the-moment thing) in love was/is the hardest part.
I have no idea if any of this is going to make sense, as it is something I have never tried to put in text or describe in an overview. But here goes:
...love seems to ebb and flow (little eddies and side streams, and areas of depth/wonder/need/fear/joy all roll around in the flow) and that seems to be the best part while there. The constantly falling IN LOVE while you already are. Not that you were out, but more a case of having taken it for granted--the safety of being able to take it as TRUE seems to interfere with the heights I get out of it. But then it slams me again...noticing a smell, a look, a feeling, a distracted touch, each of them somehow becomes all your senses, or surpasses the rest for a moment.
Wow. Nice. I could almost taste it.
This is fun. I had no idea how much I love the IN LOVE part. That could have gone on for days....
That ended the original... and here is an addendum:
Love rocks.In-Love roxors more.
--DaSauce
PS. I am sooo glad I am a truly monogamous human... I suspect that like most of my friends I would have ended up a slut otherwise.
Psst. I could never actually live it--but the thought of being a mighty, mighty cocksman in the search for the next love sure does sound appealing for the ten seconds it takes me to realize that I'd be waking up with folks I don't know or care about. [Shudder.]