Perhaps we sow the pains of love deep into our hearts at the beginning so that when the harvest comes, we can be confident in what we knew all along: that it was not meant to be. Even though it has been years past my last leaping off the love cliff, it is still a mystery to me how I became so hurt. The truth is that I am not like most people. I do not love like most men. I do not share their indifference toward the objects of their affection, as those they could be tossed away after just a few weeks of sadness. No, I am not like most men. The truth is that I do not sow the pains of love in my heart at first. I am never confident and I am always reckless.
When I jump, I do so from the highest point, the point at which I am the most fearful. And when I fall, I do not do so gracefully or carefully, like neither swan nor parachute in tow. Where most would scream, and where they probably should, I enjoy the view. I take deep breaths of fast moving air that would choke most men, maybe even some women too. I hear my own pulse as though I had stuck fingers in my ears, and listen for their pulse to come into beat with my own. As the line reads, “So close that your hand, on my chest, is my hand.” And so it goes. Falling in full force, in all the depth and breadth of my soul, into what most would realize was an abyss.
And no matter what may seem an obstacle, a sharp edge of conflict, a blunt blow from feigned naivety, a magnetic charge of codependency and attention seeking, I see as growth, life budding, when it is actually rotting. Where most would bail, and where they probably should, I take a few drinks, numb the natural nerves of injury, of pain, and clumsily bounce along.
Let's be clear here: I am not a principled man. I do nothing to fulfill a belief in “true” love, in chivalry, in honorable choice, in genuine selflessness. So, at the end, even as it was at the beginning, I am reckless and fearful. Another author once wrote, “No one ever told me grief felt so like fear.” The paralyzing grief at the bottom, just as the paralyzing fear at the top, stuck on the edge of something deathly beautiful, is why and how and from where I love. No, and cheerfully I say this, I am not like most men.
And I guess all of this is just to explain why I will never be in another relationship. I am not like most men: I am far more passionate. And passion, my friends, is not a friendly thing. Give my passion its head and it will ravage a life like a starving beast. It is not careful, it is reckless, nor confident, but terrified, and never, ever, in my heart will a woman find safety, nor will I.
