From El, O, Vee, E to Chris and Me
Do you remember the first time you fell in love? Have you ever fallen in love before? Do you know how it feels? Do you know how it should feel? If you never experienced it before, how do you know you’re in love? How’s “true love” different from “regular love”, it’s not like going to a gas station, you can’t pick between; regular love, plus love and super love. So, how does “love” work? Lets attempt to find out. God, I so feel like Indiana Jones on a quest right now. BTW we’re tackling a love felt in a relationship between two individuals here. The love felt between a parent and a child, a sibling towards another sibling, etc. etc. is another topic, so bare with me please.
A good place to start is the dictionary (Chris would be so proud, after all she is my Scrabble Queen, I meant that in a non-nerdy kinda way, even though I personal can’t speell weell). Love: attraction based on sexual desire: affection and tenderness felt by lovers, that’s how Merriam-Webster defines it. Simple, huh? No, not really, if it were that easy, people would walk around with a checklist consisting of three things; sexual desire, affection and tenderness. No one would get divorced, countries wouldn’t go to war with each other and no one would care about, The Kardashians. Now wouldn’t that be a nice place to live in, huh? Sorry guys, we aren’t going to find the answers to our questions in a dictionary. Next!!!
Science, what does it tell us? Certainly love is influenced by hormones (such as oxytocin), neurotrophins (such as NGF), and pheromones, and how people think and behave in love is influenced by their conceptions of love. The conventional view in biology is that there are two major drives in love: sexual attraction and attachment. Thank you, Wikipedia. So this is basically saying a whole bunch of stuff going on in your brain, along with sexual attraction and attachment will produce love. We have some hormones, some pheromones, a brain, some sexual attraction and some attachment and bam! We have some love, I feel like Dr. Frankenstein. maybe the formula looks like this HF+B/SA+A=Love. I don’t know guys this kind of explains love a bit, but not to a full extent. Sorry science, you can explain a lot of shit, but not love. Next!!!
Hollywood, maybe we can find the answer in Tinseltown? After all who can’t feel that love between Princess Leia and Han Solo, especially when he’s being lowered into the Carbonite Pit (and you guys thought you were going to escape a Star Wars reference this chapter, I think not). Believe it or not I’m going to use another movie reference, but this won’t be a shocker in Superman II (the one with Christopher Reeves, look it up you younger folks) Superman/Clark Kent falls in love with Lois Lane. In order for them to be together Superman has to give up his powers, in other words he has to stop being Superman. He of course does so, in order to be with the love of his life, his soulmate, as a child (many moons ago) I couldn’t understand this. I’d think to myself there’s no way I’d give up being Superman for a girl. Of course as I got older I started to understand why Superman gave up his powers to be with Lois Lane, especially when I met my soulmate, Chris. Just to get the record straight guys, I do wear an S on my chest from time to time, but I can’t fly (never even did drugs, so I can’t count that kind of flying), I don’t have super human powers (unless you think the ability to drink a lot of beer is a super power) and yes I was born in Long Island, not on some far off planet (even though New York does seem to have individuals who appear to be from at least Mars). I think Hollywood might have something here, at least for me. Next!!!
I guess I’m next let me take a hack at it. Falling in love and being in love with Chris has been the easiest, most natural thing that has happened to me in my life. For me it’s like taking a piece of styrofoam breaking it into two pieces. The two broken pieces will fit perfectly together, they are two, but form one perfect piece at the same time. They’re stronger together and complement each other. It was so easy for me to fall in love with Chris, she’s smart, attractive, loyal, easy going, low maintenance, and the list goes on. I feel so lucky to have met her, it’s like destiny brought us together. It didn’t take me too long to realize that I had met a precious individual, someone you met once in a lifetime. In some of my past relationships, I thought I knew what love was, but I really didn’t not until I met Chris. That for me is love, hope I didn’t lose anybody in my explanation.
I think we’re on to something here. I might be answering some of my questions, if perhaps we combine the dictionary with Science and Hollywood or we can just let Chris explain it. I like the later better.
I will warn you guys, I’ve had to omit some parts here, some of Chris’ writing is too personal and just for me. I hope you understand.
May 18, 2012
And I’m still happy, if not happier. I’ve met Vincent and I love to watch Ryan with his son. He’s such a good father. And Vincent is so sweet. I feel so much joy. My life feels full and good in a way that I never imagined.
I think he whispered in my ear the other night (May 13) that he loves me. I was asleep, and couldn’t make my mouth form the words back. I feel such happiness at the thought that he loves me. I love him. I don’t know if it’s too soon to say that, but every day I fall a little more. When did it start, I don’t know. That first kiss, St. Patrick’s Day, but I digress. I think I started falling in love on the day we went to Sweetwater. I got so sick and he took care of me. He was so sweet, tender. He just handled things. And I think that just every day since then it’s grown. Sometimes it feels like my heart is constricting. I want to shout about it. I mouthed the words against his neck one time and his body tensed up. I dreamed one night that he whispered in my ear, “I love you so much baby.” I think that was a dream, but I think this past Sunday, he really said it.
I love you so much, too.
I love that he isn’t threatened by me and doesn’t seem to be jealous. And I love we have our own things we do. But I would also love to see him every day, to sleep with him every night.
May 26, 2012
I could just shout it from the rooftops. I feel so happy, so complete. I worked hard to get to a place where I could let go of the pain and all the bad things that have happened. They’re part of who I am now, but they don’t control me anymore. I healed and I reconnected to the things important to me. I got to a place where I could feel complete, but I was missing that last piece. And I was prepared to never have that spot filled in. But with Ryan I feel like that last piece has been put in place.
Last Saturday, May 19, Ryan and Vincent came over and we had what was, for me, the best weekend ever. We went to Piedmont Park, Vincent played on the playground, made a friend Forrest (parents Greg and Lynn from Chattanooga), we came back to the apartment, built a fort and made pizza. Took the fort down, had a tickle fight. In mid-tickle fight, Vincent got a call from his mom, and I whispered to Ryan that I love him. He squeezed my hand and said, “too.” 🙂 Then we played some more. Eventually Ryan fell asleep on the couch and Vincent and I made a little kite. And a tape bridge. By this time we had made plans for them to spend the night.
So Vincent kept asking me how we could get his dad to quit snoring. At one point, we were sitting in the chair together watching Mythbusters. And I said to him that he and his dad could sleep in my room and I could sleep on the couch and he said, no we would all sleep in the living room. So we went and got the air mattress and fell asleep watching more Mythbusters.
After a while I got up and went to my room because I couldn’t sleep. But I couldn’t sleep in there either, in fact it was worse. I couldn’t stand being away from them. So I came back to the living room and tried to sleep on the couch, holding Ryan’s arm. But then Ryan motioned me back onto the mattress and that’s where I went. So the three of us slept there. It was so wonderful to wake up with both of them.
Donuts for breakfast, then watching TV, building another fort and eventually the Atlanta Streets Alive Festival. We walked a couple of miles, Vincent rode on Ryan’s shoulders most of the way back, and we just had fun. On the way home, Vincent said he wanted spaghetti for dinner and he asked me if he could help make it. So when we got home, that’s what we did. Ryan was our customer, he wanted a menu, so we made a menu and then Vincent helped me make the dinner. I realized belatedly that I didn’t give him age appropriate tasks. I need to work on that.
We ate and then they had to go. Vincent didn’t want to go and it took everything I had to not beg them to stay. I knew they needed to go. But when they left it felt like my heart had been ripped out. My apartment was so quiet and empty without them. It wasn’t loneliness, but just a feeling of bereftness. I knew I’d see them again, I just hated them not being here.
I love Ryan and I love Vincent. I can’t imagine how I lived without them in my life. And I feel like the luckiest girl in the world to have them both in my life now. I want to tell him constantly that I love him. For all the different relationships I’ve had, I’ve never felt this kind of happiness.
And that ladies and gentlemen is love. Till next time…
My Mosaic 