In Love

I fall in love easily, but I also stay in love for a long time, typically well after the relationship is over. If I make a decision like that about someone, it's because it's true and it stays true. It took me over six years to move on from my first love, Jared, who I'd only been with for a month and a half (with periodic make out sessions every couple of years after). The end of love came abruptly, a thought, out of nowhere, when I woke up one morning in Paris in 2001.

"His kisses are too soft."

And that was it. If I don't enjoy kissing you, it doesn't make much sense to be in love with you.

That realization won't ever come toward Chris. His kisses were exactly what twenty years of kissing has taught me is perfection. And we had a perfect rhythm from the first instant.

My high school "Psychology" teacher (in quotes because she was mostly there as volleyball coach) once said, "You can't be in love with more than one person at a time." For the longest time, I regurgitated that pabulum as if it were gospel. It's been years since I thought that were true, and yesterday, as I sat at the intersection of Hennepin and Franklin after my therapy session, thinking about love and my longing for a "true," lasting love, I considered, again, that statement.

Love, being a chemical reaction to a battery of things, pheromone, timing, proximity, and hundreds of other things that you just know you "like" or "love" about someone, it makes not one iota of flipping sense that you can only be "in love" with one person at a time.

I say this because there are people I know I will always be in love with, on some level. It's not sexual, though it is romantic, in a way, and comes from a place of bonding that just can't be broken. 

My therapist asked me why I love Chris, when he's done several things that are a bit fucked up and could be grounds for moving on. After thinking about it, I made this statement:

"When Chris is trying, when he's in it, he's everything I want, he's the one for me. But he isn't trying, he doesn't want to try, he's 'done,' so he's not the one for me."

It's just a matter of reconciling the disconnect between the two versions of Chris. He is ugly and immature in his darkness, anger and distance. But when he is focused and in it, he is, as I've always told him, a magickal fucking unicorn.

Time will tell how my feelings play out, and whether he and I will ever reconnect on any level, but at this moment, I just need to take everything day by day and not let my fears or hurt dictate my behavior. Right now, at least, it's not time to let go of being in love.