Love.
When I was four years old I fell in love with a little boy in a cowboy hat. He had no idea what love meant and was an easy prey. He was thrilled when I suggested new variations on his games but puzzled as to why we both had to ride on the same 'horse'. 'I don't have a horse because I was taken by the Indians and when you rescue me we have to gallop away. I sit in front and you put your arms round me to hold the reins'. We circled the playground endlessly; with me in heaven and him out on the wild frontier.

In one of the Nancy droftiM books a sophisticated older woman asks the young girl who she loves, 'You must be in love with someone - or what would you think about while you are alone?'. I was in love continuously from that first time on for about another thirty years. This love was often secret and often unrequited but it was real and consuming. It gave me the motivation to go out , to look attractive, to give parties and go to parties, to read and do and say things that I might never have bothered with. It gave me a reason to be alive. In the gaps between falling out of and into love I didn't FEEL alive.

But it didn't make me happy. I was interested and filled with adrenaline and sometimes a sort of hysterical joy but also moody and irritable and given to sudden pointless weeping. How many simple pleasures were ruined because 'he' hadn't rung or done what he said he would or been at the party? Nothing was ever as important as the state of the love affair. It was like a serious job. When I looked back at my life that was all I could see. One day I was walking along the street feeling low and hopeless. 'Why hasn't he called?', I was thinking. I came to, 'Why hasn't WHO called?'. OMG - NO ONE. You aren't in love at this moment. There isn't anyone to call or not call. This is just a mental habit and it has taken you over. It has to stop.

I told everyone I knew that it was all over. I would never let myself fall in love again and I would never have another affair. How they laughed. 'Oh right... YOU ... How long will that last?'. It has lasted from that moment - until now.

There is no drama. No passion or crying or gazing adoringly or scanning parties distractedly for that face which will make the evening have a meaning after all. But I can do whatever I like without feeling something lacking. I can go wherever I like without caring who will be there. I can spend days alone and live in the moment. Best of all - I don't notice if the phone doesn't ring. There is an element of dullness but it has the endless compensation that I am not at the mercy of someone else's whim. I am glad to have those memories but so relieved now that is all they are.
- posted by Iris @ 4/29/2004 01:05:00 AM comment