Posts tagged with "love"

A Crush

I met a girl across the sea
Her hair the gold that gold can be
Are you the teacher of the heart?
Yes, but not for thee

So I asked out Jenn.

I sup­pose it should­n’t come as a sur­prise; Jenn’s been — per­haps unwit­ting­ly — a source of quixot­ic inspi­ra­tion as of late.

It was some­thing I approached del­i­cate­ly, out of a sense of pro­pri­ety (if indeed, such a thing still exists), and the fact that Aaron and Karen are our close mutu­al friends. An avow­al of such a nature, han­dled incor­rect­ly, always has the poten­tial to be a cause of awk­ward­ness at par­ties.

Not that I was­n’t already awk­ward enough around her.

Jenn’s pres­ence alone would make me flus­tered. When I could speak, it would often be a flour­ish of non­sen­si­cal words. Something that’s humourous in hind­sight, but rather frus­trat­ing in the moment.

To be so affect­ed always took me by sur­prise.

I would tell myself, “This will pass. This is a phase, an infat­u­a­tion; time or luck will have me grow out of this.”

And it worked, for a while. I moved on, hav­ing con­vinced myself of such an idea, nev­er telling any­one how I felt. Then one day, I real­ized that I was only fool­ing myself. It became obvi­ous when I’d think of her in the lyrics of every song. I could­n’t pre­tend I did­n’t need to defend some part of myself from her. Until then, I nev­er believed in love at first sight. I did­n’t want to believe it. After all, how do you explain such an illog­i­cal, inef­fa­ble, irre­press­ible feel­ing? I grew, but not out of this, and in vain had I strug­gled.

She said no.

It’s fun­ny to think that with the wis­dom I’ve gained, the expe­ri­ences I’ve had, I can still be reduced to such an ado­les­cent emo­tion. I don’t think any­one, myself includ­ed, would have imag­ined this would hap­pen to me again, not at this age, not with what I’ve been through.

I just won­der now, when we’re both at Aaron and Karen’s wed­ding, after giv­ing me her polite dec­li­na­tion, whether I’ll still feel the same. Sometimes you think you’ve moved on. You think you’re over some­one, until you do some­thing as sim­ple as see them again and your heart stops. Love, attrac­tion, infat­u­a­tion, they’re nev­er so con­ven­tion­al as to be under­stood.

What a sil­ly thing a crush is.

Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend: Bronwen

I love you too much baby
For you to be with me
I love you too much baby
I got­ta set you free

—Shea Seger, I Love You Too Much

You were the clos­est I’ve ever come to per­fect in a girl­friend. In fact, you raised the bar. Now I know there are girls out there who are fun­ny, intel­li­gent, open-mind­ed, car­ing, sane, and I’ll always be look­ing for the same now.

Making love to you was fun because you’re so damn cute. I loved to look into your eyes, though I wish you’d be able to keep yours open.

In so many ways, we worked. My love of dark choco­late and your love of milk choco­late meant that we’d nev­er have a prob­lem fin­ish­ing off an assort­ed box. You’re so easy-going, while I’m so uptight. All the lit­tle things, like puz­zle pieces made of clay.

Even though it’s been months since we’ve bro­ken up, our video is still by far the most played item on my iTunes playlist. It’s such a beat­i­ful mem­o­ry, and I’ll always cher­ish it.

I still miss those notes you used to leave me about what you did dur­ing the day and when you’d be back. Those times we’d take the bus, and you’d rest your head on my shoul­der. Those times we’d wres­tle and fall asleep in a pile, right there, from exhaus­tion.

I miss all these things, but the fact is that it did­n’t feel right, and it would­n’t be fair to either of us to keep going. You deserve to be with some­one bet­ter. Someone who will ful­ly appre­ci­ate you and the things you do.

I know I nev­er said it in our rela­tion­ship, but I loved you.

And I still do.

The Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend series

  1. Introduction
  2. Ashley
  3. Michele
  4. Christie
  5. Jackie
  6. Louise
  7. Bronwen

Don't Let Me Lose This Feeling

I still stag­ger and fall. Of course I have that, it hap­pens to me all the time, you just have to get very care­ful about it, because it’s inap­pro­pri­ate for an elder­ly chap to reg­is­ter authen­ti­cal­ly his feel­ings, you know, because they real­ly could be inter­pret­ed, so you real­ly have to get quite covert as you get old­er or you have to find some avun­cu­lar way of respond­ing, but still, you just, real­ly are just, you’re wound­ed, you stag­ger, and you fall.

—Leonard Cohen at 72

In 50 years, will I look at love with the same star­ry-eyed mys­ti­cism as I do now?

Will I be sat­is­fied, hav­ing loved enough, requit­ed and not?

In my dotage, will I be proud to say that I was adored once, too?

When my friends are gone and my hair is grey, and I ache in the places where I used to play, will I still stag­ger?

Will I still fall?

Jealousy As Insecurity As Love

Hey Pat,

I don’t know how seri­ous you thought I was about being the best man or MC if you ever get mar­ried. I know it may sound crazy, but you get­ting mar­ried is as impor­tant to me as it is to you. I love you, and I know I don’t tell you that enough. You are a true friend to me, and you know that I don’t have many.

I see this as a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to do some­thing for you, because you’ve already done so much for me. Let me take on the respon­si­bil­i­ty and sup­port you, to be there for you on one of the most impor­tant days of your life. I eas­i­ly put aside the dif­fer­ences I’ve had with any poten­tial peo­ple you may invite (I think that we’re smart enough to be open and dis­cuss this), because it’s about you, not me.

These things are usu­al­ly planned pret­ty well in advance though, so I won’t be sur­prised if you have some­one else in mind. I under­stand that we’re talk­ing about YOUR big day, so you should have the peo­ple YOU want involved in YOUR wed­ding. To be hon­est, I’ll be hap­py with what­ev­er deci­sion you make, because I’m hap­py if you’re hap­py. Bottom line.

In any case, let me know when you pop the ques­tion, and WE WILL FEAST.

  —Jeff

I wrote this two years ago.

Pat pro­posed to Jen a cou­ple of months lat­er. Several months after that, they bought a house, delay­ing the wed­ding until this year.

Last week, Pat asked me to be a grooms­man and co-MC.

When I found out that Jason would be best man (as well as the oth­er MC) there was a tinge of jeal­ousy in my heart, fol­lowed by an over­whelm­ing sense of guilt about this jeal­ousy.

To feel this way was a bit of a sur­prise. Jealously has nev­er been one of my promi­nent emo­tions. It made me real­ize that I’m a lit­tle inse­cure in my rela­tion­ship with Pat. There’s so much good in him, com­pared to the hatred, dark­ness, and weak­ness in me. He’s not my oppo­site, but he’s the per­son I’m con­stant­ly striv­ing to become. Just being around him makes me feel elat­ed and relaxed.

The frus­trat­ing thing is that I know it’s his wed­ding. He should be able to do what­ev­er he wants. There’s no rival­ry between Jason and me. As studi­er of peo­ple, I have every bit of faith in Pat’s deci­sion. The log­ic has final­ly kicked in, and I feel a sense of warmth and secu­ri­ty about being up there with Pat, a group exclu­sive to a hand­ful of peo­ple out of a seem­ing­ly end­less num­ber.

It’s only now that I real­ize how self­ish and inap­pro­pri­ate it was of me to ask. Running around, mak­ing sure every­one is hav­ing a good time, giv­ing toasts, host­ing games, the duty of MC isn’t even some­thing I nor­mal­ly want to do. I only asked because it was a way that I could show how much Pat has done for me, a respon­si­bil­i­ty I’d take on glad­ly.

I’m scared that I made him feel oblig­ed, and I’m ashamed of being jeal­ous for that split-sec­ond.

Maybe that’s what love is.

Unfounded inse­cu­ri­ty. Jealousy with­out rea­son.

A feel­ing that over­whelms log­ic.