Musings on love (you have been warned)

It’s been a while and there are many thoughts in my head as of late, so please bear with me as I try to sort out the various paths in my mind. Be prepared, there may be more of these to come.

As you know, dear readers, my first husband contacted me recently. He said, as you’ve read, “In all my life I don't think I could find anyone who felt the way you did for me and for this I am sorry.” You have to understand, T.S. was my first – my first everything. The first man I truly, really fell in love with - heart, soul, mind and body. I thought you were supposed to love that way – in the way that you would give up everything for that person, take a bullet for them, stay with them if they were brain dead and on life support. Love them no matter what. He’s right – but in a weird way. I will never feel for anyone else the way I felt for him.

I thought I loved my current ex in the same way but I think I always knew that it was a little different. How could it not be? T.S. still had a piece of my heart, a piece that he will carry to his grave. I knew that the instant I opened this mysterious email message and saw his name on it. He still has that piece of my heart and I realized it in that second.

However, I did love my current ex with everything that was left of my heart because I didn’t realize that there was a segment missing. Maybe that’s why we didn’t make it – that missing piece of my heart. Oh, and his caustic, abusive manner may have contributed. But I gave him everything, because that’s how I thought you were supposed to love somebody – with every fiber of your being, ready to give up everything for them, take a bullet, etc., etc.

Then there was one who made me realize that I missed the passion and the spontaneity and the pure adrenaline that T.S. had possessed. Although we were never to be anything but friends, he stirred something in me long dormant – the desire to be around somebody exciting and who thought I was incredible and who could make me smile just by the sound of his voice on my phone. I tried not fall in very heavy “like” with this person but he had the passion my life lacked and that was so attractive. I knew there was no future, I knew there was nothing there except for this unexplainable thing he stirred in me. I knew so much of it was just that – he stirred something long dead in me. Unfortunately, I didn’t have good control of my emotions and my heart to not keep some of this to myself and not throw a huge piece of my heart at him, whether he wanted it or not. I tried to hang on to it but it got away from me. Things ended badly, although I never really knew why. Someone who knew us both through all this said that I was “too much” and needed to back off. I tried. Apparently, I failed because he withdrew, he attacked, and now he only is a beautiful, tragic, heart-breaking memory of one of the most amazing and terrible times in my life.

And my current OOMA has also retreated, pretty much completely out of my life now. What I feared for so long has come true – he doesn’t miss me, I don’t mean to him what I thought I did, and I did it again. I was “too much” and drove him away. And yet another piece of my heart went with him, a piece that I will never get back.

So, slowly but surely, my heart has been broken and fractured and shattered into a million pieces. Pieces that will never come back. Pieces that are where they belong, I guess, with those who took them. And I guess I have bits and pieces of each of theirs, tucked away securely so I can take them out and cherish them when my heart feels so broken and destroyed that I wonder if I can ever pull enough of it together to ever give it to someone again. Because there is so little of it left now that I don’t think I can chance giving any of it away again.

Because I still believe – despite all the evidence to the contrary – that love should be whole and deep and organic and unconditional. I still believe that loving someone should mean being willing to give up everything. I still believe that there should be love so pure and true and real that it takes your breath away to be in the same room with that person. That is what love should be. That’s what I think love is.

And I get glimpses of that kind of love, most of which is totally unconditional and comes from many in my life. They are seconds or maybe a minute or two and they are fleeting but they are what I seek.

Such as last night. Cute Boy (who I admit I still have a terrible crush on and secretly I still wish he’d dump his lovely but kind of dull girlfriend and come running to my door, despite knowing that we are worlds apart) gave me one of those moments. He hugged me good night in such a way that said, “I’m glad you’re here, I’m glad you came tonight, I’m glad you’re my friend and in my life.” He held me just a second longer that he probably should have, and I held him back, and he made that happy, affectionate noise in his throat that I know I have made when I hug someone I love – whether one of my dear girlfriends or the OOMA. In that millisecond, I knew I was loved, without agenda, without definition, just pure, true, unconditional. Those are wonderful moments and I treasure them. Monica has done the same thing to me lately several times.

It makes me wonder what would happen if we all just let ourselves go and just love. Just love. Just say, “I love you” to anyone you love. Not “I love you and want to fuck you.” Just simple – “I love you.” If, in that moment last night, Cute Boy had said, “I love you”, I’d like to think it would have meant just that to me – that he loved me, that he was glad I was in his life and that was it. Of course, I probably would have lost my mind and spent the entire night sitting up, wondering what he meant and if he truly loved me, etc., etc., because we’re trained by the world that people only say I love you if they want to be your boyfriend/girlfriend/lover. Not because you just do.

As I walked back to my car after this lovely moment, I realized something about love and me and my marriages and my life. I am too much and I love too much and I give too much and I expect too much. I don’t know how to do it any differently. I don’t know how to not give so much of myself to someone who seems to care about me, most obviously men who care about me. But, in the end, I always end up heartbroken and weary and wary and shattered. It makes me afraid to be fond of any men in my life. It has made me recently want to resurrect a wall around me and not give anything to anyone and just shut myself off. Particularly lately, knowing that the OOMA no longer cares enough to hang around. I don’t want to feel this way again, I don’t want to hurt this much again, I don’t want to risk anything ever again.

I have given up everything I had and I was and I wanted for two men, whom I married. I loved them deeply and purely and openly and with everything I had. And they took my love and they took what I gave and they took and they took and they took. Both of them gave back “as much as they could.” A phrase that should forever be removed from the English language. That simply means they aren’t capable of loving that person the way one should – without hesitation, without fear, without agenda. “As much as you they could” is not enough anymore, ever. It’s unfair and it’s disproportionate. If I love you with everything I have, you should give as much in return. One shouldn’t love more than the other. But it is often the case.

I guess what I really came down to is simple. I want someone who loves me the way that Cute Boy loved me in that millisecond last night. Unconditionally. No agenda. No fear. Not too much, not too little, just right. But someone who loves me that way always. Okay, now, I realize there are times when you want to throw a chair at the one that you love because they’re human and sometimes we almost deserve to have chairs thrown at us. But I want someone whose eyes light up when they see me, who cannot wait to see me to tell me all about his day and hold me and tell me how much he loves me – and who means it in that agenda-less, unconditional way. Someone who loves me despite my craziness and my over-achiever silliness and my spinning wheels of emotion. Because that’s how I want to love, that’s how I know how to love. I can’t internet date because I don’t want or know how to be that casual. I want real, I want true. I want it all.

But life doesn’t allow that. It allows glimpses just before someone runs away. It allows the pretense of that love, until “as much as he can” runs out and he doesn’t anymore. It allows the prevention of the mending of my heart and the rampant growth of my fear in that shattered organ. It allows me to stand on the side, thinking I need to change the way I love. It allows for me to be alone and afraid instead of allowing me someone who loves the way I need.

But I also realize that it is just a fantasy. There isn’t unconditional love out there, other than from my beloved Twyla. Even that is based on a clean litter box and the occasional treat. There are just men who are afraid and men who have to destroy in order to be fulfilled in some way. Men for whom “as much as they can” is what they give because that’s all that’s required of them. There is no one out there who is as “too much” as me.

That leaves me with a choice. Be “too much” and sleep with my cat for the rest of my life. Or be “as much as I can” and hold something substantial back, just to be in the company of someone else giving “as much as they can,” both of us being less than and both of us maybe wishing for more but unable to give more. Many have chosen the latter, which makes me sad. But I’m not seeing many other choices out there.

So, for now, I guess I choose alone.