Once, I was in love.
It was a long time ago, and I was very young. Too young, really, to know what I was getting into. It happened seven years ago, almost eight. It\’s shaped much of my current life. I\’ve spent the last six years trying to find something to either make me forget about that love, or something to equal it, if not outshine it. So far I\’ve had success with neither.
Once, I was in love.
I was in love with a \’man\’, if you will. A boy by physical years, but an old soul within. We had no boundaries, no limits, no concept of fault. Everything was fair game, and everything was an adventure. I was going to be his first woman (and probably only woman, as he was very much gay, except for me… but then, I\’ve been the \’boy of his dreams\’ for many a man), and he was to be my first consensual man. We were waiting until I was no longer scared. I wish we hadn\’t waited.
Once, I was in love.
My Star held me through everything, even when he couldn\’t. He braved getting kicked out of his fancy ass prep school in order to help me get clean. I braved the same for him. We dared each other into soberness. We dared each other into finishing the school year. We dared each other into doing the right things. He was the source of my most fucked up behavior, and he was also the cause of the end of it\’s first chapter. He was the first person to ever get through to me on any level and make me feel like I was worth the life I had been given.
Once, I was in love.
Gestation was one in a million. When I tried to kill myself, he made me laugh about it afterwords. He was the only one who made me feel like I wasn\’t insane. When I started starving myself, he was the only one who could get me to eat. When I started making myself vomit, he was the only one who could get me to digest calories. When I started to cut myself, he was the one who tried to talk me out of that, and failing that, he was the one who got me the little antibacterial towelettes to keep my knife blades clean. He was the only one who ever tried to take my knives away from me, and when that didn\’t work, he was the only one who would watch and make sure I wasn\’t slitting my wrists open.
Once, I was in love.
When I felt like I was all alone, he was the only one I could turn to. We went to each other for everything, shutting everyone else out. It was the start of my pattern of codependent relationships. In my mind, I still see our relationship as perfect, and so I keep perpetuating the pattern. We could make moves without each other, but we were bloody miserable while doing it. Everything was always better when shared, including the self destruction.
Once, I was in love.
He was two years my physical elder, but my equal in every other way. He had blonde hair that he shaved off the day we were tripping and became deathly afraid of body hair. He kept his head shaved after that, causing me to now find bald men to be incredibly sexy. He had grey-blue-green eyes that were greyer than mine, eyes that showed pain through the joy and joy through the pain. He was taller than I, and strongly built. He could pick me up and carry me on his back, twirl me around until we were both dizzy. He used to do push ups with me on his back, just to show off. He was the most pompous little twit I had ever known – at least on the outside. Inside he was the most sensitive and open person I have ever encountered. Hundreds of miles away he would know when I was having a bad day. He didn\’t have to look at me or hear my voice – he just knew. He always knew.
Once, I was in love.
We met the weekend that the world found out that Kurt Cobain had killed himself. I had always had a thing about Kurt anyway, and the events of the last few weeks of his life stunningly aligned with mine (but that\’s another story). April 09 was a Saturday, and it was the end of a big week. There were three different parties planned for that weekend, and they all went ahead as planned, though the party atmosphere was rather dulled. My parents didn\’t want to let me out of the house that weekend. They heard what had happened and knew I was big into Nirvana – one had only to look at the posters on my bedroom walls and listen to my constant blaring of In Utero. They were afraid that I would try to kill myself again, as I had attempted just that at a party a few weeks earlier. Eventually they relented and let me go.
I can\’t even remember who\’s party it was that I was at on Saturday night. It was huge. The parents, if I recall correctly, were out of town for the weekend, and the party\’s attendees ranged in age from 12 to in their 20s. There were at least a hundred people there at any time of the night – rivaling even the party I had had a few weeks prior. The only music to be heard that night was Nirvana, and Kurt Cobain, suicide and pain were the dominant topics of conversation. Many people were crying, others were curled up talking. These were the sensitive, emotional, calm types. Others were having sex – some in the middle of the floor. These were the blocking and life reaffirming types. Everyone else – about twenty kids – were the \’we can\’t fucking take this and we\’re going to act out violently\’ types.
I am somewhat ashamed to say that I was of the last type.
We built a bonfire in the backyard, down by the park. We were drinking and yelling and pill popping and spinning and vomiting in the bushes. We were running down into the park, over the bridge, trying to keep each other from jumping but secretly wanting to ourselves. It was the first time I saw anyone cut themselves, which was to have a big impact on me. The more wasted I became, the more fucked up things I did. At one point I set my hair on fire (purposefully) and another time my Chucks\’ shoelace caught on fire from trying to stomp out renegade flames from the bonfire. Eventually I did my favorite \’party trick\’ – sprayed Binaca in the palm of my hand and lit it on fire. It was a \’skill\’ one only attempted if they were extraordinarily fucked up or stupid. I was both. I never burned myself – it was a matter of knowing when to shake the flame out. It was a feat that always impressed a sufficient amount of people, and this time it attracted the attention of one person in particular.
He looked like everyone else there, dressed in torn jeans, a black t-shirt and a flannel shirt over it. The differences between he and the rest of the kids were his Doc\’s had glittery shoelaces, and he wore glitter over his eyes. I was enthralled. He said he had an even better trick – he used his Binaca and lighter to blow fire out of his mouth. Then he offered me his bottle of Glentromie whiskey. As we got more and more drunk, we became more and more fearless. Before the cops busted the party we were throwing ourselves off the second and a half story deck and directly tumbling down the steep hill into the park. Sometimes we landed in the brush, and a few times we landed in the creek. We were trying to not feel, trying to forget, and yet reveling in each other. Revelling.
Once, I was in love.
We played hooky the entire next week from school, hanging out in the parks near our respective schools. Getting fucked up on alcohol and talking. Talking. That\’s such a primitive way of putting it. It was almost as though there was a direct link between our brains – we rarely actually had to put anything into words. From the first time we started talking we were finishing each other\’s sentences and laughing at each other\’s jokes long before the punch lines. We were linked, and we knew it. We didn\’t know it would be the way it was. One never does.
Once, I was in love.
We had our highs and lows, violent highs and ecstatic lows. He was my sun and I was his moon. He was my fire and I was his water. We never looked back. We tried to not look at the present. That\’s what got us into trouble. He was spontaneous, wild, a Pisces man (though not a Pisces). He was everything I had ever hoped to find in a person, and was things I had never dared to imagine. He was my Gestation and I was his Star. We sang each other songs and danced and argued and talked and loved. He was life unto itself.
He was. He is no longer, at least not the way I am.
Once, I was in love.
People tell me that I am not responsible for his death, but I can\’t help but feel that if I had just kept my promises, he would be alive. I\’ve tried my best ever since to push people away. If I don\’t let them in, if I don\’t let them trust me, if I don\’t let them care or like me, then I can\’t be the cause of that ultimate pain again. If I don\’t love, I can\’t be loved back – not really – and if I don\’t love back, then we\’re all safe.
There have been times when I thought I was in love. Four other times. Only one came anywhere close. The others were relationships I delved into hoping to either blot out the memories, surpass the memories or rectify what I did wrong.
It\’s been a year and a half since I felt love for someone new. I\’ve been terrified that I\’m just up to my old tricks again. I find myself actually falling in love – something I haven\’t done in more than four years. I don\’t want to run away from this, but I feel like I might have to. I\’m afraid that I\’m still not ready, and that it\’s consuming me. Or maybe that my life really is just unsure right now, and that it would be just as unsure whether I had a romantic relationship or not. I don\’t know. I might not know until I get out, or until I fix my head enough to figure out what my next move is.
I don\’t want to lose love again, but I don\’t want to lose myself again either. I have to be the most important. I have to put myself first. How do I explain this to the part of me that has just come to terms with not having relations with someone simply for pleasure? This is the first time in over a year that I\’ve been willing to tolerate any bullshit to be with someone. This is the first time in over a year that I\’ve not run away as soon as the sparkley new giddy feeling has worn off.
What I have now is new. Very new. It might very well be my first healthy relationship… but it might not be. If I\’m losing myself, it\’s not healthy. But it might just be me. Only two ways to find out. Which path do I take?
Once, I was in love.
I am still in love, but now that love has grown. It encompasses my first love, myself, life, my friends, my family, Jamie and Mark. I love again. I feel again. I\’m alive again. And I\’m not giving that up. I\’m not going back to being dead inside again. I swear this, by blood and birth and death and water. I\’m not going back.
