I don't want no part of your love
I don't want no part of this crazy love
I don't want no part of your love
"I'm in love with the idea of not being alone. And if I can get a guy like Jeff Winger to love me, I'll never be alone." That's a quote from my favorite sitcom Community. If you haven't watched it yet...why haven't you? Do yourself a favor and check it out on Hulu. :)
I know a guy like Jeff Winger...
Good looking.
Confident.
Intelligent.
Indifferent.
Unavailable.
Conflicted.
Kind.
Shallow.
Confusing.
Funny.
Caring.
Selfish.
I never know if I'm coming or going with him. I don't know if I'm in love with him, if I'm in love with the idea of him, if I'm in love with the feeling I have when we're together. I don't know what love is anymore, which makes it difficult for me to write romance novels. A problem, since that's more or less all I have to support myself.
Actually, it's not the problem you might think it is. I used to write romance because I was fascinated by the dynamics. I didn't really make a conscious decision to marry my husband--we met when we were very young and he was the man who could rescue me from the hell I lived in. And I was the girl who'd give his life meaning. But the more adult relationships I actually wrote about? Those are a mystery to me, as far removed from my experiences as Ann Romney's was from my mother's.
We decided to take a break.
Fat Charlie the Archangel files for divorce
He says this will take a year of my life
And then there's all that weight to be lost
And that's when I met my "Jeff Winger."
I developed a new theory of love after that. This one was far more dark and painful than anything I entertained before. There's very little difference between love and addiction. Very little difference between addiction and mental illness. Very little difference between love and mental illness.
No! We don't need to run to anybody, and the fact that we think we do is just a mental illness created by gum commercials. That's Jeff Winger's theory of love. He doesn't believe in it, and doesn't think people should make decisions based on it. I respect him. I think he's right.
But my Jeff Winger? He believes in love. I think it's all he believes in. And when I'm with him, it's all I believe in, too.
When you're in the middle of an addiction, you rearrange things to accomodate that addiction. You move money where you have to move it. You make bigger and bigger sacrifices. You go through withdrawals without it, you miss it, you think about it all the time. You'll do anything for your next fix, even though some part of you understands that the next fix will never be as good as you're expecting/anticipating.
I can't think straight without him. I can hurt myself terribly by just calling and hearing his voice. And instead of keeping my distance from this man, I let him in so close to my heart and soul that I have no idea how I'll ever disengage from him. He's so close to me that if anybody else tied me up in these knots, he'd be the one to help me untangle them and move on with my life.
I have no desire to disengage from him.
Love
We crave it so badly
Makes you want to laugh out loud when you receive it
And gobble it like candy
We think it's easy
Sometimes it's easy
But it's not easy
You're going to break down and cry
I want to be with him every day because to not be with him is horrifying. I'm willing to move my life, give up anything, do whatever he asks fo me, because of the trade off of being with him.
This is not healthy behavior.
And he's not asking this of me, either. What is worse for me? And why do I do this to myself knowing that I don't live in a movie? He's never going to return my feelings. He cares about me as a friend, and that's rare enough in his world that I consider it a position of honor. Something I would never ruin.
I have no shame when it comes to him. No goals or needs greater than him. I make plans to move to other states to get away from him and then immediately change my mind, wrecked at the thought of being so far from him. I consider following him across the country. I know this is a ridiculous plan and I'll never do it, but oh I understand why other people choose that path.
Over and over and over again
I say that were just friends
Forget the implications
Infatuations end
If loves so easy, why is it hard
I can't imagine ever being apart
But is love healthy behavior? Remove the "heart and soul" rhetoric and anchor these emotions, these responses and reactions, needs and desires, right in the physical world. It's a chemical reaction in our brains, not unlike the same reaction we get from eating chocolate or doing anything else we find fulfilling and satisfying.
But if it's located in the head why do I feel him in my chest? Why do I suddenly understand the rhetoric of a broken heart? Why does he hurt me without meaning to and why do I always feel it in the solar plexus?
I literally can't stop thinking about him. I remind myself not to call him or text him. But then I think of what I could say to him, and before I know it, I'm reaching out to him because random words on my screen are enough to make me smile all day if they come from him.
From what I can see of the people like me
We get better
But we never get well
When he doesn't want me around, I feel like I've been cast out of the Promised Land. Like I'm living in exile, a criminal who never had a trial, never learned her sin. That's when I hurt the most and I come to my senses, reminding myself that I am a person separate from him, that I have goals, and I have a life, and I have to worry about me first and foremost, because nobody else is going to look after me. But even when I come to my senses, he's there. Hovering in my mind like a ghost--his laugh, his smile, the sound of his voice all right there, so close, so real, I feel like I'm with him.
In those times, I think of Pablo Neruda. I crave your voice, your mouth, your hair. Silent and starving I pace the streets, bread does not fill me, the dawn disquiets me, I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps
I memorized Pablo Neruda for him. I go from loving to not loving you. From waiting to not waiting for you. My heart moves from ice to fire.
Is this an illness? And could there ever be a cure for it? Popular culture seems to indicate that time is the only cure, but how does that help me get my head on straight and my life in order right now? Why are humans such silly, strange creatures? Why is he so beautiful and alluring to me?
Maybe it's not chemical, or an illness, or an addiction. Maybe I should indulge in the "hearts and flowers" rhetoric and say there's something deeper there. A soul connection. We click on every level, we understand each other, laugh at the same stupid shit, share the same opinions, fight because we're equals and it's good to flex our muscles, play because he still has so much to show me. So many people know this man, and love him--is it hubris to think maybe I know him in a unique way? That my love is somehow more pure?
My heart can stand a disaster
My heart can take a disgrace
But my heart is allergic
To the men I love
And it's changing the shape of my face
Maybe I don't want to die alone.
Maybe I don't like myself very much, but I can forget all about that when I'm with him, because he likes me plenty. He sees so much in me that I never saw in myself. He believes in me, and the love he has for me is freely offered, without expectation or explanation.
I wish he was a stone-cold jerk. I wish he was actually cruel to me. I wish he was aware of each broken heart because then maybe I could blame this all on him. But he's more generous with his affection than anybody I've ever known.
Is it possible to love somebody "too much"? Is it possible to love somebody "more"? What is the difference between what I feel for him and he feels for me? It feels like there isn't one when we're sharing a cigarette and talking about our futures. And then he finds another girl or boy to be with, to date, to play with, to talk to. And I can't be all things to him, but it feels like he is all things to me, and we're on uneven ground.
Why can't you love me for who I am
Where I am?
He said "Because that's not the way the world is baby"
This is how I love you baby
He knows I'm in love with him. Not because I told him. I probably never will. How will that conversation go? And why would I ever want to find out? He doesn't need me to tell him the truth anymore than I need to hear the truth from him. It won't give me closure, won't settle anything between us. This thorn of pain I always feel when I'm with him is permanently embedded. I know him, I know what he'll say. I know what he won't say. And I'll feel that in the chest, in the tingle of my nose, in the burning behind my eyes.
Edit: It's now been a month since I first drafted this. I'm surprised to see that. I wrote it and planned to "clean it up" but I guess it's better this way. Many things happened in the past month--including events that made me believe it was best to say it to him as plainly as I could.
I was only wrong about one thing. It did help. It actually made a huge difference. But I was right about his response. I expected him to deny it. You don't love me. I mean, thank you but...you don't love me. You love what I represent. You're learning to love yourself and I give you a space for that.
I respectfully disagreed but I didn't want to start a ridiculous argument over who loved who.
I thought about what he said. How I know he meant it because he can't accept love. He doesn't feel worthy, doesn't believe it can be truly meant for him. As much as I've built him up in my mind, he's just a person with his own insecurities and fears and doubts, visible scars he'll never explain and the invisible wounds that I can sense but will never understand.
He doubts so much he plunges his life and heart into crises, and so we sit in the dark together while we think about the people we're in the process of losing but cannot separate ourselves from. The truth is, I never fell out of love with my ex-husband, he fell out of love with me. The truth is, I know that I have no future with my "Jeff Winger" because we're not on the same path--we've just been running parallel for a little while. He's given his heart away already, and what he has left over for himself, he's shared with me and he'll never ask for that back. His friends always last longer than his lovers.
I needed him to know what I really meant. I wrote this whole diary to figure it out, but the words didn't come until that moment.
You are the air inside my chest...
I said, "You're precious to me."
He said, "You're precious to me, too, sweet."
It doesn't hurt like it did before. Actually, it doesn't hurt at all.
I've started to write again. My editor was pleased to hear from me after my year of silence. It's a romance. I think I have something more to say about it.
This is what love is for
To be out of place
Gorgeous and alone
Face to face
Songs in Order of Reference
Crazy Love Vol 2-Paul Simon
Love-Paul Simon
We're Just Friends Wilco
Allergies-Paul Simon
Hearts and Bones-Paul Simon
You're The One
Impossible Germany-Wilco