Butterflies

Strange realizations come to me in the midnight hours, musings of lost love.

First love I dated one of my best friends in high school, a boy I loved even before I believed I was capable of falling in love, or that I'd even want to. We were young and naive, the unspoken couple. Jan always did little things to let me know he cared, that he thought of me, and I loved him for it. An artist, he once sketched a portrait of my eyes, which he gave to me, and which I hung up tonight. To have a piece of the unraveled past as a remnant on my wall now is so telling, so surreal.

We met when we were 14 and 15, and ever since, we were peas in a pod. There was this one February I'll never forget. We were 18 and 19, still ridiculous, and I was more in love with him than ever. I stayed with him for about two weeks at Malaluka. It was a strange, dark, and beautiful time. We would stay up each night into the wee hours talking in bed about the future, our desires, God, eternity, art, life, and pain. We painted each others' bodies and made them into art. Little did I know, he was changing that winter, becoming someone I'd hoped he'd never become because I knew it would exclude me. I couldn't deny it; we were growing up and growing apart. The nights we spent together, the dreams we shared, everything would turn to ash. I was heartbroken. We were best friends all through high school, and now we could never go back. I was so in love with him that when it was over, I thought I would never move on (high school is so melodramatic, after all). I couldn't imagine loving anyone ever again, and the thought of him seeing other people, loving them, and sketching them, killed me. Everything about it hurt. That spring was the first time I'd felt pure pain, the pain of love lost.

Looking back now, many years later, I laugh about how foolish we were, and about how ridiculous we must have seemed. We've both moved on, become adults, had our hearts broken by others, and picked up the pieces. We're not so naive anymore. I marvel at how deeply I was able to love him, and wonder how in the hell I ever loved him to such an earth-stopping degree. I mean, it's Jan. We don't see each other often, as our lives did pull us in different directions, but we are friends again. Friends with a history. Friends with limits.

So as I look at this portrait from another place in time, a painful time, I try to go back there. But it doesn't hurt the same way anymore. Looking at it now is like running a finger over an old ragged scar and remembering getting cut, but not the way it felt. On my wall, I've hung a scar from the first time I fell in love.

Then there was Christopher.

Second love I loved Chris. He was the first and only man I ever wanted to marry, and the first man to want to marry me. We worked together for a year before we got together, and I found him altogether contemptible and irresistible. There was something about him. First of all, he was devastatingly handsome. Second of all, he was the poster child for the emo movement. Piercings and tattoos, and always something about which to pout. We poked fun at one another, laughed together, and bonded over nonsense like Natalie Dee, Chris Crocker, and "Shoes" (OMG, shoes). Until the summer came, when we started to fall in love. He was going away to school, four hours away, but it was too late; we had to be together. So, we dated long distance for most of our relationship. Chris was usually the one to drive home on weekends, and we'd fly kites or find food, go to concerts, or go to Dinosaur World because he was obsessed with dinosaurs. At his prompting, we picked out names for our future kids. Yeah... seriously... Then there was the first time he told me he loved me. To hear the words come out of someone's mouth, to be given to me, was ecstasy. After losing love, having it back was the greatest lottery prize of all time. There was nothing more I wanted... until there was.

Chris took anti-depressant medication, which saps one of sexual desire faster than anything. This devastated me. Here I was with the man of my dreams, with our future laid out ahead of us and looking bright, and he did not desire me. He loved me, but could not love me. Despite all of the things about him that made my world brim with bliss, I was falling into despair and out of love. Other men in my life made strong advances toward me, and as desirous as I was of love and interaction, I was faithful to him. We stayed together for a year and a half, time that, though lost, I wouldn't give back. I learned a lot about love from Chris, both what it should and should not be. And for him, I am grateful. We tried to be friends after the relationship, but... there was too much there. There are so many scars from that relationship that, without them, I would look nothing like myself.

So, here is where I am today. It's been close to four years since I've been in love, and I want to be in love again. I want to be with a man who knows how to love me, and does. I am dating now, and am overwhelmed to find that everyone else wants to fall in love as dearly as I do. We all want to be loved. I have forgotten what this looks like. I am a relationship girl, so to be a swimmer in the "dating" pool is a strange existence for me. I'm used to the guy just showing up; I've never had to look for him. Yet here I am wading in the water. I have been on many dates, and have met many interesting people. I cannot say with any certainty that I have met my match. I did share a level of intimacy with someone that has shaken me up, made me hyper-aware of my sexuality, and of myself as a woman. I need love. I need physical love. But as I was apt to find out, there is a difference between sex and love. I now feel myself attached to a guy who has no interest in dating me or getting to know me. For him, it was a purely physical act, and I don't know how to do that. I get attached, I bond. I need love to be involved.

I'm also embarrassed by how pathetic I must now seem, chasing after this almost one-night stand. I want him to know me, and I want to know him. That does not, however, change the fact that we're both still seeing other people, and that he obviously does not feel I possess what he's looking for. I'm smart enough to know that someone who wants to spend time with you will do it, no matter how early he has to get up or what he's got going on. Someone who likes you wants to be where you are. Period. So, this is a time in which I am picking myself up and moving on. I want to think that I can be friends with him, but it is hard to scale back and recover from an investment that didn't yield a return. So, I move on. If he wants to give it a go and get closer, great. If not, at least I won't have been pouring my heart and time into an empty vessel.

Through it all, I know this much: love will always be foolish. It will always be ridiculous, and there is nothing elegant about the search for love. It is gritty, it is hard, it is embarrassing, it is painful. A week into dating, I was already exhausted. It is an arduous process, a misery unlike anything in the world. The attainment of love is the only consolation for its humiliation. So, you take all the material from your dating experiences and you put it into a comedy routine. Or, you leave it untouched in the back of your head to pull out at night, to analyze while you stare at the ceiling and wonder under what ceiling your lover is sleeping at this very moment. I'm not a quitter. I want love. And I want to love someone again. I want to be unable to go without holding someone's hand. I want to willingly drive hours to see someone for mere minutes. I want butterflies. I want someone who'll dance, even if he hates to, because he knows it makes me happy.

That's what I want. And I won't settle for anything less than butterflies.