“You can’t always get it right, With even the best advice, Sometimes you gotta find out for yourself. My failure to recognize, What now seems so black and white, Is blamed on an anxious heart I know well… I’m going back to where I started, Back to when innocence was open hearted and, I’ll love again, I’ll love smarter, But I’m gonna love the next one, I’m gonna love the next one harder.” —Tess Henley
I wish that someone would have told a younger me that from the moment you start dating you will never truly be single again. Ever. From your first infatuation on, you garner the knowledge and appreciation of being with another person. And from your first fall into the depths of love’s chasm, you learn the meaning of completion.
Song of Solomon 2:7
I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds in the field, that ye not stir up, nor awake my love, till he please. (KJV)
Why did I not listen? Why did I rush?
Trudging home to a quiet house and an empty bed; listlessly pining for a stranger to inhabit your space. Come with me, my love, to the sea, the sea of love. Let us lie there basking in the promise of forever. Let flesh to flesh touch and speak in passionate poignancy. Let me breathe in your fragrance with parted lips and a welcoming smile. Let me mourn your absence from our confining proximity. Let me rest in a haired shirt anxiously awaiting your return. Let me find solace in your witty quips and purpose in your ambition.
And when we say our last goodbyes, let the sorrow lingering in lowered lids entice another hapless chap to scurry along after my wretched siren’s call. Let us begin the cycle of brash abandon in our togetherness until it’s time for another temptress to steal you away, and another dandy to woo my affections.
On and on the story goes until the one that wants to stay has to win a champion’s quest to claim a damsel’s scarred hand.
So tortured is she from early escapades of libertine disregard; rouges and scoundrels casting aside her pleading attempts to love and be loved. She’s lost taste of the word’s true flavor.
She lives in the daydreams of her lover’s vacated musk, blindly dancing the quadrille until she’s captured in her next partner’s open embrace. Helplessly she swoons to the romantic undertones of the troubadour’s tune. As the ballroom clears, she hunts the dissipating dazzle in every nook and cranny, knowing that the next flush lurks in uncharted corners.
She can no longer lose herself in a solitary promenade or the gleeful giggles of her bosom buddies. She wants the thrill that sets her heart racing and glazes over her eyes in a wild fever.
Love is a heady sensation. We can forget in the throes of passion, in the search for a lover-true, in the depth of our imagination of love, how much power is given up to be with someone else. And if that power is relinquished to someone unworthy, you may find yourself on a deserted street corner holding shards of a once pure heart, begging for tape from a tattered soapbox.
Raises the question, were you ready when you first gave your love away? And now that you’ve done it once or a thousand times, do you feel prepared to do it again?
Do you ever wonder what life would have been like if you never let ‘him’ in to your heart? Would you still feel you know yourself if you never loved and lost?
The heart is a sacred vessel and yet we barter it like bootleg DVDs hoping for a good price.
For one is not meant to live alone, living life on one’s own. And from the time you feel the first pierce of cupid’s arrow, you never truly are alone again. Whether it’s a memory or an earthling, you will forevermore live in love’s shadow.
Was the juice worth the squeeze?
The Soundtrack of My Life 