Heavenly Connections...No Starry Dynamo Necessary

"I don't want to live... I want to love first, and live incidentally"
- Zelda Fitzgerald

To be honest, I was wrong in my last post when I implied that I don't burn for anything. At the risk of sounding too completely sentimental, I do feel more than a little burning when the subject of love is introduced - namely because of the aforementioned man in my life.

Originally, I never really saw myself falling deeply in love until I had lived a solid decade as a crazy young and free (and probably loose) twenty-something, glamorously dancing on tables and hooking pinkies with my equally crazy young and free girlfriends while spilling pink liquors on devastatingly handsome investment bankers (Most likely the backlash from our own Sex and the City infatuated Generation).

On second thought, maybe I shouldn't say "originally" because, if you really want to get technical about it, originally, (as in circa 1995) I was a desperate, hopeless romantic who chased the same boy for 4 years. I spent the better half of my pre-pubescent time conjuring images of marriage and children while sighing deeply and throwing myself dramatically onto couches whenever my best friend, Carly, would "coincidentally" set the CD player to Sheryl Crow's "Are You Strong Enough To Be My Man."

Truth be told, the poor boy I was chasing was only eleven years old and didn't know I existed outside of being his neighbor's best friend and the girl he had vicious snowball fights and went sledding with. Like all one sided childhood romances, it had to end.

Due to my undying devotion to the poor eleven year old boy who endured my love notes and desperate crank calls for 4 years while he just tried to be a skinned knees type of kid, my developing love life suffered well into puberty and I didn't even experience my first kiss on the lips until the age of 14. I was mortified, considering all of my girlfriends had lost their kiss-inity in middle school, and here it was, second semester freshman year of high school and I still wore elastic gap jeans with over sized sweatshirts.

Finally, my time came. It was an anti-climactic moment in my childhood bedroom roughly 4 minutes before my current boyfriend of 2 days had to run out the door. A girlfriend I can hardly remember the name of was making out with her new boyfriend on one side of my bed while we and said boy sat on the other. Bush's "Glycerine" was playing on my five disc changer stereo as he leaned over me, and I vividly remember the smell of Nautica Competition cologne mixed with winter fresh gum and BenGay.

I'll spare you from the rest of my sexual developmental gory details, but lets just say I developed rather quickly after the long awaited loss of my kiss-inity. The rest of my high school experience was dotted with one serious boyfriend, several causal ones, and many, many flings I either remember fondly through a Bud Light and Captain Morgan's induced haze, or not at all.

Somehow, by the end of high school I gained the reputation of being a little racy and lot knowledgeable when it came to the world of boys and dating, thus I began to think of myself as the female version of a "player". I enjoyed boys, pretty much any boy, and I enjoyed any mind game I could play with one. I raced my car around town blasting Big Pun's "I'm not a playa' I just crush a lot", flipping my long blond locks in the wind. I had broken several hearts and although I thought mine had been broken by a couple of those boys, I am pretty sure I had never really tasted the true bittersweet pain of heartache until my college days.

I went to college believing that I would have a few fun flings before settling down with the man of my dreams, just like my older sister who found her future husband right inside her freshman dorm. What really happened became exactly the reason I lost all imminent desire to meet mister right, and convinced my self that the single- dancing-on-tables life was far more desirable.

I met a boy. We slept with the window open to smell the snow. We made up secret games. We slow danced when there was no music. We had picnics under fire orange trees. I fell in love.

We drove through the mountains with the sun roof open to let in the night sky. We went on hikes through nature trails linked arm in arm. We watched 3 movies in a row just for an excuse to be next to each other. We stayed up into the wee small hours, just talking. I was in love.

One night, in a dark dorm room, lit only by the fluorescent sickliness of a laptop screen, he told me that he knew love was going to feel like flying, like being able to jump over a ten foot fence, effortlessly. I told him I felt like I was flying. He told me he didn't feel like he was flying with me.
Inevitably, my heart broke. I was nineteen. Deeply infatuated. Deeply desperate. Deeply ashamed. Deeply embarrassed. Deeply scarred.

Despite the pain I can never deny having, suffering from a broken heart was possibly the greatest experience of my life.

I learned to truly lean on my self, and only my self. I learned sometimes, most times, that is all you have. I learned the difference between love and obsession or infatuation. I learned that even in one's deepest moments of despair you can find laughter. I learned that no pain is silly if you are really feeling it. I learned that making your away message the same series of desperate quotes for 6 months straight does not win your boyfriend back. Nor does an away message boasting the (fake) great time you are having. I learned that mother's don't always have the answer, especially at 3AM. I learned that no matter how much someone emotionally damages you it is never okay to ruin their life too- plus, it doesn't ease the pain any. I learned not to interpret anything, always know for sure if you want to be safe. I learned that with matters of the heart, you always want to be safe. I learned independence in the greatest sense of the word. I learned who my true friends were and how to really use their shoulders to cry on. I learned to look within my self for strength.

The aftermath of that quiet conversation in the laptop lit room was long and painstaking. I never knew I had it inside of me to be so weak. It took a lot of getting used to, a lot of tears, a lot of long talk, a lot of dating and a lot of sleeping around (eeek!).

Greg appeared when I had stopped.

I had stopped crying, stopped feeling desperate, stopped looking for opportunities to make that boy change his mind. I had stopped blaming myself for him not being able to love me. I had stopped looking for my self.

He was in the driveway between my sorority and his fraternity wearing a red beat up Polo hat, an over sized sweatshirt and ratty sweatpants. He had a 3 day old beard and greasy hair. It was love at first sight.

I won't get into logistics, but minus the 6 months he went back and forth between me and another girl (that's right, he broke my heart a little too), plus the four month hiatus last winter during my quarter life crisis, Greg and I will have been together for 3 years this January. It has been better than flying.

Perhaps Ms. Zelda Fitzgerald was onto something when she said she wanted to love first and then to live incidentally. I must say, these days, it seems like I am not doing much living, but that the living I do is most purely exceptional in the presence of Greg. Maybe Zelda has the secret, if we could just find love first, life will eventually take its course.

My passion, my burning, is felt in the little things. When Greg takes it upon himself to spread peanut butter on my English muffin. When he passes me a napkin before I realize I need one. When he lets me watch my favorite TV show despite the fact that he hates it. When we inevitably have the same desire at the same moment - whether it is the desire to go for a walk or the desire to gorge ourselves on several pints of Ben & Jerry's. Usually, I find myself incidentally living through my love.

Despite what I can only call some of the best luck I have ever had (finding Greg),I still do desire a little more. Call me selfish, but I still value my learned independence and sometimes I still think I need to burn for something that is only mine, like a job or following or a project.

I do burn though, I burn every day for Greg to get home from work just so I can be in his presence, I burn for his arm to cuddle in the night when we decide to sleep at our own places, I burn every time he hands me a napkin.

It is a true heavenly connection, no starry dynamo necessary-just napkins.

So what if I'm not following the original plan of sequined mini skirts and pink drinks, I get to drink beer on Sundays inside dark pubs while Greg teaches me the ins and outs of football, my mouth burning from buffalo wing sauce-and Greg, handing me napkins. And , I must say, it is truly heavenly.

When I feel my connection to these moments, and to Greg, it is a burning so explosive that saying "i love you" almost cheapens it. I don't know what could sound cornier than that, nor do I know what could sound better than that.

Perhaps I am missing the point. Perhaps the napkin is the starry dynamo.