Love Addict: The Word(s)

Boy-friend. Boooyyy-friend. B-O-Y friend.

Why, exactly, is it so hard for me to say that?

It slipped out of my mouth before I could catch it. We were at a rest stop, me holding onto the leash of someone else’s dog while someone else went to the bathroom. I cooed at someone else’s love as she looked around searchingly for her father. A man got out of his car and asked, “What kind of dog is that?”

“I think she’s an Afghan Sheepdog,” I answered. “But she’s my friend’s dog, so I’m not sure.”

There it was. Friend. Not boyfriend. Friend.

“Well, she’s a beauty. But watch out if you ever move in with your ‘friend’,” he said, catching me in the middle of my crime. “They are loyal to one person and one person only.”

I smiled at him, but retreated back into my head. I suddenly felt trapped by my own inability to just be happy.

There had been more than one moment where I felt it coming. The beginning of the phrase so revered (and feared) that we all make absolute sure it will be well received before we say it. In the heat of passion, sometimes our lips become looser, and it was there that this notion would begin to take hold. I almost pleaded with my eyes for someone else not to say it. But when it begins to bubble up, frothing at the sides of the lips with the unmet anticipation, there isn’t much we can do to keep it in for long. And so for someone else, it exploded on a card.

My eyes glazed over it, a protection mechanism that might indicate I missed it, I didn’t take it in, it wasn’t there. I kissed someone else’s lips gently to say thank you for the present, thank you for drawings of super spy cats descending in front of my computer, thank you for knowing me and getting me and wanting me, all of me. But I didn’t know what to do with those three little words, and in the larger sense, what to do with what they mean.

It’s amazing how quickly someone can become a part of your everyday existence when they weren’t there just moments before. And someone else sees parts of me that he never did – the fact that it’s tough for me to keep my apartment tidy, that I’m hardly constantly shaved, plucked, and smooth, that I’ll turn down sex when I’m not in the mood. Someone else sees the tarnished areas, smiles calmly and says, “I want them in my life.”

I knew from the first moment that this was it for someone else. I knew someone else wanted the long haul.

And yet the longing kicked in for that which I can’t have. I thought it had left, taking the last train to the edge of a previous existence. I even waved goodbye with wonder and gratitude, grateful that it had come, but also grateful it was going.

But now, as closeness and steadiness and relationship moved in, my mind screamed for air. It screamed for uncertainty with certainty. He slammed back into my consciousness as if a long-ago yesterday were really just yesterday, and I struggled to logically sort it out. ‘It’s fear,’ I thought. ‘It’s what you do. You’re scared to be with someone every day. You’re scared of boredom. You’re scared that it’s never going to be right. You’re scared to be loved in the way that means this is it. You’re addicted to the pain.’ I knew it, but I couldn’t stop the longing.

And then I spun. The magic of so many moments washed over me, staring into each other’s eyes for hours, seeing the universe in the deep blue waves, him old, him young, him an animal, him a little boy. The hair I ran my fingers through, the way his eyes closed when he first told me he loved me. I kept spinning and spinning, thoughts of him with other women, him not really loving me, him never thinking about me now, me a distant memory placed in the recesses.

The darkness finally emerged, the shadow side that we push out of the light for fear that others will see it, point, blame, make us feel like a lower form. I wanted to call him, tell him to meet me somewhere, and ravish him for all the wrong reasons. But then I got caught in the moment where we ended, where he said it couldn’t continue because of the circumstances, the circumstances that were always there and what we knew would end it eventually.

Circumstances were what they were. No matter these realities, I felt he saw a tarnished side of me – needy, pleading – and said, “Now this is too much.”

I pulled to the present, and dialed someone else’s number.

 

 
Marcas relacionadas:
No hay resultados para "Love Addict: The Word(s)"