Seat For One, Please!

Love.

It is such a magical thing when it happens.

And such a gravitating force when it ends.

Blame the sunshine, my most current state of affairs, or the young couples sucking face on the Glade today, but humor me here. What is it about this mad state of being, that drives the most stable of minds off their rockers?

Has any language, binary or literal, invented the words to describe this devastatingly wonderful condition? And if so, could you even assemble these candied drops of half expression into a sentence, paragraph, volume, or scroll that does it half-justice?

In my cockamamie stab at it, I look back at a piece I wrote in the thick of it. It reads:

"Still, love is no cup of tea either. I mean sure, the first sip is akin to a warm blanket after a long period of cold. It's sweet, & spicy, & absolutely delicious. You just want to eat it, except you cant because its a liquid. So you exist on that quench of thirst. Just today, I was working downstairs when the chef began to prepare bacon for lunch. The delicious scent wafted through the air, and it nearly drove me crazy- it took all that I had to stay in my seat! I wanted to eat, swallow, & capture the aroma in the bottles of my taste buds- indulging in its glory forever. Love is like bacon air, it'll drives you crazy."

And now? Although I am currently dealing with a "post-bacon stomachache", I know I am better off for having tasted it. Artists, poets, & singers have mused over it for centuries, the perpetually ill (we all know them, the peeps that feed off relationship drama) live for it, wars have been started over it, & yet we still continue to subject ourselves to this perilous fate with almost a goofy blindness.

"Love is all you need!"

-The Beatles; Remember when you learned this fallacy the hard way?

"Better to have loved & lost, then have never loved at all."

-My brother after a short lived romance in Argentina- ha!

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."

-Ew. Pretty sure I just yaked in my mouth.

"But I love him, Daddy!"

-The Notebook; & Every other teenage girl in America.

I digress.

Love is like a roller coaster ride you never want to get off of. Even though you know it'll eventually come to an end, you can't help but soak up that indescribable happy HIGH you get when you're on it. The twists, the turns, the ups & downs- it's all too exhilarating! You wonder how you could have ever been buckled up next to anyone else, & bank on the prospect of sharing this two-seater with him (or her) indefinitely. Each loop garners a physical reaction from you- manifesting fluid thought into shrieks & hand s h a k e s. You scream, you laugh, you smile, you shout- fully entangled in that seatbelt of love. Oh how glorious this ride called love is!

But then almost as fast as it so thankfully began, the ride comes to an almost torturous end. You feel the weight of your fast paced adrenaline fused ride come down on you like a ton of lead bricks. The stomach that rose to the top tiers of your airborne chest crashes down to the deep pit of your empty insides. How will you step onto motionless land with weak knees that wobble and sway? Like a newborn goat learning how to keep his legs straight, you must re-grow the strength and know-how to stand independently. Will you ever be agile enough to walk the stretch of land towards that shiny, new ride? & If so, will you even want to?

L o v e:

The ride we love to make us sick.