Can't You See

If you can’t tell yet again from my previous less ambiguous post, I basically fell in love and tried to deny it. At least that’s what I told my family, friends, coworkers, neighbor, and ex-girlfriends. It can be quite embarrassing, awkward, and some say pathetic to admit especially when you’re walking off the plank alone. However I’ve always thought expressing one’s feelings was a sign of strength. But perhaps it takes a better person to hold all that inside. Call me weak. I don’t care. It’s hard to hurt a man that’s already down.

Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah
- Leonard Cohen (Hallelujah)

So I lost…my heart. It’s my fault. I gave it away stubbornly and foolishly. At least it wasn’t stolen. But that makes it more difficult to get back, because she has my respect for not taking it. I’m pretty sure she lost hers somewhere in the past and never had it to share anyways. Meanwhile, other girls keep giving me their heart without reason. Oh, the irony. It’s utterly amazing how attracted women are to you when you ignore them, offer nothing, and are completely apathetic. It’s equally perplexing how fast they will turn the other way when you express the slightest interest. It’s like asking to dance is a marriage proposal. I think that’s partly a hazard of my age and stable situation. Sometimes I wish I had nothing (no house, no job, no truck, and no future) so that my life was not inherently defined by everything around me. Plus the last thing I want is someone to like me for artificial reasons. So here we are. I’ve never watched one, but it sounds like a daytime soap opera.

Before I continue talking about love, let’s get this straight – I am in no way qualified to talk about love. Is anyone? I would put more worth into the unjaded opinion of youth that have never had their heart broken or an elderly couple that has been married for half a century and overcome all obstacles. Also, oldies, rock and roll, and country music seem to have a lot of good ways to describe it. I realize it’s not all cupcakes and unicorns and that it requires teamwork, compromise, and such. Obviously all relationships have internal struggles that we may be better off without, but walking into an empty home every single day after work for nearly a decade can drive a man insane. I refuse to follow the negative train of thought that all relationships lead to heartache and pain. 

And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end
the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I'd of had to miss the dance
- Garth Brooks (The Dance)

Perhaps the most precious thing in this world does indeed hinge on semantics. It’s not what you say; it’s how you say it. It’s easy to “fall in love” but to look someone in the eyes and tell them “I love you” are two different worlds. The former happens without consent from either individual, and the latter is a promise from one to another. However, the catch remains…how can one ever say they love another without falling in love first? It’s like being born. We can’t choose our parents or what town we are from, but we can decide whether to love our home and stay there or leave and search for something else. And I do believe we can grow to love a new home or a new friend. We don’t have to trip and fall in love at first sight…that should actually be a warning sign of something superficial. What does head over heels mean anyways? My head is already over my heels. If I tripped, my heels might then travel over my head. All this explains my previous admission about crushes and somewhat conflicts with my desire to only follow a spark. A fire doesn’t always have to start with a flint. Friction and heat have the same effect in time. So like I said before, it’s partly beyond our control and partly a decision.

“Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.”
– Bruce Lee

So maybe I fell in love…big deal. I will never use that word in verb form until the feeling is found to be mutual. I still reserve the right to follow my heart…or slap myself, get it back, and save it for someone that will appreciate it. I think the best thing to do now is leave it all alone. I love the state where I’m from and likely will spend the rest of my days in it. But if you asked me that the last day of high school, I would have said good riddance and already crossed the border to college hundreds of miles away. It wasn’t until I left that I realized how much I loved home.

“If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were.”

After writing, reading, editing, and re-reading all this several times I’m still not sure any of it makes sense or ties together. Can’t you see?

Don't Fall in Love!

So if you can’t tell from my previous somewhat ambiguous post, I had a pretty big crush on someone.  Big enough to format my heart into a bullet point utopian happily ever after list fit to scare away every single girl on the planet.  I use the past tense because the present is constantly changing and the future is never known.  I use the term crush because that’s what it was.  Infatuation.  Love at first sight.  Temporal madness.

I felt like a schoolboy about to hold hands for the first time in my life.  We never held hands though.  We never even went on a real date or shared a kiss.  Yet the atmosphere would change around her; the air would feel inexplicably different.  If there were a barometer on the wall, it would shake like an erratic compass set at the North Pole axis.  A simple smile would ignite spark plugs and override a medical pacemaker.  You could sit me in front of a runway lined with supermodels and I would only see her.

“Happiness and sanity are an impossible combination”. – Mark Twain

Crazy?  Perhaps.  Scary?  You bet.  I’m sure that’s what she thinks and it’s hard to disagree.  The common advice from my handful of close friends and family is “don’t fall in love”.  My initial reaction was why not?  What kind of cold world do we live in where love is frowned upon or something to run from?  However, for me this has nothing to do with love...yet.  Maybe it never will.  Time will tell.

I’ve had crushes before (not of this magnitude), but none that lasted.  They all turned out as blessings in disguise.  Therefore, I find myself reluctantly glad to be in the friend zone.  I don’t want to break another heart any more than I want mine broken.  I don’t want another relationship to start for the wrong reason.  But neither do I want to start one without a spark.  I’ve been down both roads before and neither seemed fit for love.

Love is the biggest word in the world and the most powerful force in life.  I could go on quoting Book of Corinthians, Sophocles, Diana Ross, or George Strait and analyze every philosophical aspect of what love is, but in reality it’s something that can’t be fully defined.  Some say it’s a decision and a commitment.  Some say it’s fate and beyond our control.  I say it’s all these things.  Nothing is black and white, and all words have more than one meaning.  Love is both a noun and verb.  The most precious thing on earth should not hinge on a debate over semantics.

Does any of that make sense?  If not…good.  The only thing I know for sure about love, is that it doesn’t make sense.  If it did make clear perfect sense, it would cease to exist.  It would instead morph into some conditional checklist, mathematical equation, or scorecard matrix.  We are not robots set to binary code.  We are human.

I've reached the only logical conclusion
Love ain't supposed to make sense
This ain't no thinkin' thing, right brain, left brain
It goes a little deeper than that
It's a chemical, physical, emotional devotion
Passion that we can't hold back
There's nothin' that we need to analyze
There ain't no rhym or reason why
- Trace Adkins (This Ain't No Thinkin' Thing)