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I have been writing this column for more than a few years.
I have written about sex, relationships, physiology, fantasies, fetish, BDSM, positions, losing your virginity, when to call it quits and much more, but I don’t think I’ve ever written about love.
I think it’s because it is one of those emotions that means different things to different people. I mean, how do you compare the love for your child with the love for your parents or partner?
If Annie was writing this article she would have a chemical explanation for what happens when you meet someone and fall in love.
Can you fall in love by simply seeing someone across the room? How does that happen? And how long can it possibly last? Is it a one-time deal that everyone else will be judged by? Is it a type of madness that leaves us scarred for life? Is it the one emotion we keep hidden, for fear of the repercussions, if we were truly honest about it? Is love best unrequited, because then it can stay safe in the realm of fantasy and what could have been, rather than what really is in the cold light of day?
Does love die or does it just change into some watered down version of what we’ve been sold by romantic comedies? I always say that if you believe that sex is what you see in porn movies, then why can’t some of us believe that love is as it was portrayed in one of a thousand movies we have all seen and loved? If you think this column is all about asking questions, it is because I’d love to know what your take on it is.
This is my last column in the printed section of this paper. Be comforted to know that I will continue to contribute to the online version of the paper.
But as my last time of and seeing my name in print on paper and in ink, I want to know about love.
I’ve always said I have never loved anyone enough to hate them. They are two emotions so closely aligned that you can see many couples make that switch in a heartbeat.
While I really have not loved anyone enough to hate them, I have loved, with all my heart.
I’m talking about that obsessive, compulsive, all- consuming kind of love.
The type where you see someone across the room and every cell in your body resonates that this is trouble and you need to walk away.
As hard as you try, the universe connives and before you know it, you are consumed.
It is wonderful and awful and there is just nothing you can do to stop it. It’s that moment you know you will remember on your death bed, long after the relationship, however it played out, is gone.
In my experience very few of us are able to maintain that “great love” relationship.
It’s a bit like being Icarus, flying too close to the sun.
So if you are brave enough, you know you have to walk away, to save your own sanity and sense of self.
It is that feeling that leaves you yearning at 3am.
It’s the person you miss the most when your father dies and your child achieves greatness.
It’s the secret you keep for fear of who the truth will harm. I hope that you find love, in the right place with the right person, that your love harms no one else.
That you are brave enough to stay or go, whichever one is best for you.
I hope that your love never turns to hate and that you learn to deal with the longing in ways that makes you stronger and kinder.
I do believe in love. I even believe in love at first sight, it’s the “happy ever after” I’m cynical about.
On that note, I’d like to thank you for reading my column all these years.
And to my great love - “I miss you, like the desert misses the rain!”