What's Love...

...besides fodder for popular music and an excuse for horny teenagers to explore each other's naughty parts in the backseat of the family car?

It's an interesting question, one that's pervaded my thoughts since I was old enough to grasp the concept of relationships among people. After several false alarms and crushes that left me, well, crushed, in middle school I was ready to experience the real deal. I remember high school and waiting for the day I'd fall in love. What would it feel like; who would he be? Would he love me in return? Would it be the two of us against the world? Needless to say I was lightning-quick to diagnose myself a sufferer of unrequited love once I met a boy from California. He was reasonably cute, nice to me, and he'd drunk dial me at night. Amazingly enough, those conversations brought us closer together. Amazing how the drunk dial always has that potential, innit?

I began calling him (sober) after my parents would go to bed and he and I stayed up talking most nights. Soon after, we decided to pursue a "relationship" with one another.. He had never had a girlfriend, and since I'd fooled around (i.e. limited amount of stealing kisses and letting some guy touch my undeveloped chest), I cnsidered myself a relationship authority. He asked me to be his girlfriend and I still remember the way he looked and what he said. Those memories remain, even though it was nearly ten years ago and now I consider myself in love with a different man. What is it about love, or the feelings surrounding it, that allows us to hold on to those kinds of memories when we can't even remember last night's dinner?

Anyways, he and I were pretty close, and had even planned to be each other's first sexual experience until I met Josh at a summer program in my hometown, Chicago. I was not particularly attracted to him at first. Though he was a funny guy, I was too young to have really put effort into realizing he liked me, or flirting back. I was oblivious. Though Josh's technique for winning me was a little underhanded, I still became attracted to his big open heart, quick wit, and his uncanny ability to make me laugh at the most profane thing. I truly believe that, though he irritated the hell out of me by following me around everywhere during the first week or two of our "relationship", I was falling for him at the same time. Or, perhaps we were developing an attachment that went beyond the schoolyard idea of girlfriend/boyfriend dynamic. At least I was--can't speak for him.

I just remember that falling for Josh was different than I'd ever experienced "falling" before. It affected my body in some strange ways that I couldn't explain, either. From insomnia to lost appetite to inability to think of anyone else, falling for Josh wasn't easy for me. I just remember that I had no idea what was going on with me and him. I was clueless, until one of my friends suggested that I might be in love with Josh. He meant it as a joke, but my mind latched on to that idea and turned it over a few times... Strangely, even though I didn't really want it to, that idea made sense. How could I rationalize that, however, when I still technically had a boyfriend at home? I didn't want to believe that my heart could be split and feel for two people at the same time, but to my knowledge it had.

Later I discovered that my love for Josh did bloom then in that short period of time. Since then it's blossomed into something that I don't understand, something I can't even fathom, really. I could describe it in words like, addicting or obsessing, but I could also use words like inescapable and fated. My loving him has its downs, but then it has these indescribable highs. Through it all, I want him. I want to be there for and with him and to have him do the same for me. It's frightening sometimes. I suppose if he's willing to continue the discovery, for time being so am I. Maybe one day we'll figure out what love really is.