Love, or Something Lke it.

"Almost all the time you tell yourself you're loving somebody, you're really just using them. This only looks like love." -  Chuck P

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about love. What it means. Where it comes from. Why feels so good, and hurts so bad, all at the same time.

My roommate came home with her ex-boyfriend tonight. They broke up about a year ago, and were in a 6-year relationship prior to that. When I first met her, she was still wounded from the split. She thought this guy was the "one." I don't know the details of the break-up, but it was clear that he wasn't ready to "settle down," and things ended because of that simple fact. Seeing her with him, it was quite obvious her feelings were still strong, and while some time has passed since they'd last been together, it also looked quite clear that the reasons for their break-up hadn't really changed.

This got me thinking about the relationships I've been in. Most of my friends would say that I've been pretty lucky with the men in my life. I don't think luck has very much to do with it, but regardless, I have had some pretty awesome relationships. Granted, they couldn't have been "that" awesome, because, well... they ended. But overall, the guys who have been "lucky" enough to call themselves my boyfriend, have all been really amazing fellas. 

At some point, with all the men I've ever loved, there was a moment where I was so in love, I didn't think I could live without them. Deep down, I obviously knew that I could in fact, "live without them." I had been alive before they were in my life, and I would be alive after. But at the time, the love was so intense, it felt like I would just evaporate into the atmosphere without them. Not in the co-dependent, "l need constant attention or I'll freak out and accuse you of cheating on me while at dinner with my parents" sort of way. < --- (Yes. This totally happened to me. *NOTE* - Just to be clear, it was the GUY who freaked out at dinner in front of his parents and blamed it on love, it was NOT me). But in the, "You're so amazing, I just want to be part of your life" sort of way.

Thinking back, I can't help but wonder, where does the intensity of this overwhelming love go?

I've always believed that above and beyond everything, love is the only thing that matters. For the first time in my life, I'm not sure that's true anymore.

I still believe in love, but suddenly, it's become this massive black-hole of uncertainty, circulating in and out of my mind's eye. What if the person you love just stops loving you? What if the more you fall in love with someone, the more they start falling out of love with you? And what if, at the end of the day, above and beyond everything, love just isn't enough?

I know that everyone who has ever been in love, has speculated on the above questions, but this is the first time I've ever really cared about the truth in the answers.

Maybe it's that I'm getting older. Maybe it's that I feel a little lost. Or maybe I'm just starting to give up on all the bullshit that falls out of our mouths when we're trying to get laid, or simply want to feel close to someone without actually having to align our hearts, and attach.

Everybody is so busy trying to "find themselves," I feel like we've stopped trying to find each other. I'm not by any means trying to be judgmental here either. I mean fuck, I'm the QUEEN of "trying to find myself." But honestly, I don't think we ever really "find ourselves." I think we're a collection of everyone we've ever known. A mosaic of fragmented memories. Everyone who has ever touched us, physically, emotionally, mentally, is a part of who we are.

The tiny pieces all fit together in the most fucked up Picasso style painting, known simply, as our life.  We don't "find ourselves," we accidentally create ourselves through a series of mistakes, near-death experiences, and existential crises. 

But in the end, it seems like love is the glue that holds it all together. I realize how nauseating that last sentence is, but I can't help but believe in its validity.

So how far do you go for love? Do you block out the doubts, and love with your heart wide open, even though it might get ripped out of your chest? Do you trust someone who you know might just be as evil as you are? Do you move to another place just to follow it?  Or do you let it go because you're not sure how much you're willing to gamble?

And when love leaves us defeated and broken, lying on the bathroom floor, do we still believe that it was "worth it?"

Is it ever "worth it?"

In one sentence, Oscar Wilde bluntly sums up exactly what i'm trying to say:

"The secret of life, is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived." 

I don't know what happened with my roommate and her ex-boyfriend tonight. But if life were a Nora Ephron screenplay,  they would fall back in love, get married, have some babies, and live in a bubble full of happiness, topped off with an epic proposal on the roof of the empire state building. 

Tragically however, this is real life, and shit like that doesn't happen in real life.

Even if they did fall back in love, get married, and have babies, at some point, one of them would get restless and need to "find themselves" again. My roommate will become frustrated by her husbands long hours at the office, so she'll start flirting with the kid at the cafe down the street. The babies are stressing her out, and her husband isn't helping like she thought he would. They start fighting all the time, and the distance between them grows. She starts sleeping with the cafe kid, while her husband bangs his secretary on company time. They become ghosts of the people they once were, expertly pretending that everything is just perfect...

Perfect like it was in the beginning...

In the beginning... back when love was enough.

I think it's safe to say that I feel quite strongly their relationship won't be working out.

But hey... what do I know? 

love you mean it.

Limerence.

In a half-cocked effort to better understand the unexplainable nature of inter-personal chemistry, I've attempted to research the subject a bit. This past week, I read a few clinical studies, dabbled with some statistical generalizations, and hastily absorbed myself in the angsty-lovesick-blogs of complete strangers. After pontificating on these abstract pieces of an unfathomably large puzzle, i've come to the conclusion that, PHD or not, nobody knows shit. 

Backed into a wall of theoretical happenstance, the definition of 'limerence' momentarily appeased my fervent desire to explain the indescribable feelings associated with chemistry, and the great lengths one's mind will venture to achieve kinetic solidarity. The peculiar effects of limerence sent me spinning a bit, but it was a good spin. The kind spin that flips your stomach, and makes you laugh uncontrollably, stumbling around in a dizzy haze. 

Limerence refers to, “an involuntary cognitive and emotional state of intense romantic desire for another person... physiologically, limerence can cause: heart palpitations, pupil dilation, and general muscle weakness. Awkwardness, stuttering, and dizziness are also common effects... In the early 1960's, before limerence was better understood, it was common that patients were diagnosed with a, 'slight, temporary mental illness.'”

When I read this, my first thought was, 'so this means you find someone you have no explanation as to why you're infatuated with, and the chemistry between you two is so strong, it actually causes “slight insanity?" 

Fuck that shit.  

I have a hard enough time NOT completely failing at life, without the confines of a mental illness. 

But I digress... 

The thing about limerence that's so frustrating, isn't necessarily the feeling itself, but the uncontrollable nature of it. There is no logic to back up the utter helplessness 'limerent pangs,' ultimately lead to. Even after you rationalize the 'cold-hard-facts' of the situation, the ache in your belly doesn't go away. Your brain tries to reason with the rest of you, but your heart; your stupid, irrationally stubborn heart won't hear any of it.

But, there is something to be said about that aching pang you feel inside your chest when you love somebody, or miss somebody that's moved away. The fluttering palpitations under your sternum as you remember the feeling of their lips. Chemical reactions working overtime, while the fading memory of their skin, moving against yours, reminds you of the insane power your nervous system holds.

And like most things that churn around inside us, and turn our vital organs into nothing more than a bundle of knots, time tends to lessen the impact, lessen the ache. The knots eventually loosen, and the fluttering heart strings once again ground themselves behind the protective curtain of our thoracic cavity, and intercostal wall. The limerence you once felt, feels more like a dream than anything that was ever real. The overdrive of synapses firing off in the frontal lobe subsides, and it all seems so completely silly in this rational place of general normalcy. Everything goes back to the way it was, back to the logical junctions in which each day tries to hold its footing.

But unbeknownst to you, there will be moments when, all of a sudden, on some idle Monday night, you'll get a phone call...

And the vibration of their voice in your ear, the syncopated breath sounds, fill your head with a choreographed dance of distant memories you didn't think were going to mean this much. And the limerence, which you've spent weeks building over and burying deeper, will shoot up from the center of your belly, and destroy everything in its path, “Final Destination” style. But you won't be mad. You'll let the syllables falling past their lips, wash over you; like a wave you turned your back on, like a misstep at the edge of a pool. 

Because at the end of the day, after you've abandoned all failed expectations, and started building up promises for tomorrow, a little lovesickness feels kind of good. Not because it's particularly comforting, but because it reminds us all, that someone out there has affected the bloody mess of valves and chambers known as our heart. This heavily guarded fortress has been compromised, and albeit frustrating, there is something irrationally euphoric about the intrusion. Not knowing whether this uninvited guest is going to rip apart the sinew, or walk lightly through the thorax until they finally lean back and rest comfortably against the lining of the left ventricle. 

But truth be told, when it comes down to it... you didn't have to answer the phone.

But you did.

Because you wanted to.

Because you just had to.

Because the limerence told you to.

love you mean it.