Friday, September 21, 2007

Help me out here, people

This post is about L-O-V-E.
What is your opinion on love?
I try to think back about how many times I've actually been "in love". If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say maybe three times. More like two. Maybe even just once...and none were my ex husband. The first and the one I'm in the most doubt about was the boyfriend I had my senior year in high school. His name is J. I was nominated for homecoming queen and wanted to shake things up, so I chose J to be my escort. Very alternative to my vanilla. Eyeliner, black wardrobe, drugs and alcohol...everything I wasn't...except for the eyeliner, lol. We were together for nearly a year. He was beautiful and brilliant but he just had so many problems. I tried to "fix" him, but there was nothing I could do. I saw him through so many terrible ordeals, and what did I get out of it? Stress and a drinking issue of my own.
The second "maybe" was my boyfriend B. He was black and a basketball player. I was enthralled with him. We fell in love (if, indeed, that's what it was) very quickly. We talked about him taking me home to North Carolina, we talked about getting married...I thought he was it. He was the only man to ever really and truly break my heart.
The love I'm sure about was with R (metal band R, mentioned several times in previous posts). After 5 years of being apart (and me being married for 4 of those) I never, ever stopped loving him. A month ago, if he walked through the door and asked me to move to California to be with him, I'd have packed up the kids and left - no questions asked.
L has now entered the picture. The feelings for R are being erased around the edges a little. It's exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time. Exhilarating in that I might possibly have real love again...a love that goes both ways. In my marriage it was him loving me, me not loving enough back, but being afraid to leave or lose him. I felt like I was nothing if he wasn't with me. How would I do this by myself? (obviously, I've answered that question. I do this just fine, better even.) And terrifying b/c I'm desperately afraid of losing the love for R. It has defined me for so long, how will I be if I let go of the one true love I'm positive of?
I know the answer isn't difficult. It would be the healthy thing to do to let R go. To stop trying to find a way to convince myself he's the one I'm supposed to be with...because for the first time, I'm not so sure he is the one I'm supposed to be with. But there's always that little "what if..." knocking around in the back of my head. So what do I do with that voice? Is there something to it or is it just a habit I'm having trouble giving up?