A hero of mine is a writer by the name of Robert Fulghum.
He does not know me at all. I’m only a fan or a reader, at best.
However, in his book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Fulghum talks about a game called Hide-and-Seek.
He talks about someone being too good at the game.
His suggestion to the child was, “get found, kid!’
What a great idea this is. . .
Get found!
I have news for you.
Life is going to drive you crazy. Trust me.
Just know this.
Know that sometimes, life will drive you crazy in a good way too. There is such a thing, as in to be crazy in a good way.
I swear that sometimes, you will be through the roof. You’ll be out of your mind.
But just know that for every high, there can also be a low that is equally as deep or low as the high was high. This is not to say that our highs cannot be extended or well-lived.
Not at all.
Just be mindful. That’s all.
I want you to know that life can be a crazy place.
Know that love can make you do crazy things.
So can anger and resentment, which are the weeds and part of what kills our love and our dreams.
Love can hurt.
Trust me. I know.
But please, hear me out.
Love can make you strong enough to face the lions. Love can lead to a bravery and loyalty that would cause you to dare the mightiest demons and cause you to fight back like a god (or goddess).
At the same time; love can weaken the knees to the point where we can hardly stand or walk or think rationally.
Love is the craziest thing.
I swear to this and I will even stand by the old swear that we used to say when we were kids, like “cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye,” which means this is the truth from my heart.
Love is real.
I swear to this like I would swear to anything sacred—even birthdays or on the graves of loved ones who have passed or even the animals whose names we hold sacred.
Love is both brave and scary.
Love is equally brilliant as it is amazing and fulfilling.
Love can drain you. Love can replenish you.
And yes, love will make you do, think and say crazy things.
Crazier than you think.
Perhaps I should say that the word crazy is an understatement?
Yes. Yes, it is.
I think crazy is an understatement when it comes to love.
I say this because it is an understatement to say that I am crazy, as in wild or through the roof, or out of my head, or out of my mind, and jumping over the world in leaps and bounds because love is so real and so beautiful that once you feel it, it’s like a drug, like a special brand of euphoria that cannot be copied or duplicated by any narcotic or opiate in the world.
The mainline on this one or the vein is straight to the heart and the injection of love (so-to-speak) is more than a rush or a high or an ease that is so insurmountable that no one can simply just “walk way.”
How can anyone walk away from a high so great?
I never felt this when I was young. Better yet, I never allowed myself to feel this when I was young.
No, this was too big for me. This was too brave. This was too humbling and vulnerable. This was too pure and too big and so bright that I was too afraid of what happens if I allow myself the euphoric high that comes with love but my love comes unreturned or rejected—but ah, yes. I did have fantasies.
I had dreams. I had ideas. I had wants and needs and desires and passion.
Sure, I had passion and I wanted to find someone who tripped the wire and boom, something explosive took place, like a minefield in the heart and wounded or not, I could die this way, “in love” I mean.
I wanted to find someone who would intercept all the unneeded thoughts. I wanted to see a face who could melt the pain or absolve the worries because in their company, I could feel euphoric and high, or unbeatable and healed.
I wanted to find, meet and to have somebody to the point that World War III could happen and boom!
A nuclear explosion could take place, but even in the midst of all the chaos, I wanted to find someone who I could emerge from a room after the two of us ravaged each other—and we would both look around and be curious to know why the world blew up and together, we could laugh, and ask a question like, “Did we miss something?”
But for the record:
I do think that love can be a shield. I think love is a sword.
I believe that love can weaken us to become spineless or hollow.
Absolutely, I do.
I understand that broken hearts exist. And so do you.
I understand that love is always unfolding or unravelling, or growing and that each day, love can grow. As this grows and no matter how old we are, a piece of us is like a child again.
Love is the real fountain of youth.
Make no mistake about this.
And God . . .
I want to be young again.
In fact, I wish I had nurtured these truths when I was younger. I wish someone told me how great this can be.
I wish that I allowed myself to dare the borders of my fear. I wish I tried because perhaps then I could have gone right instead of left.
I could have followed the path that I knew was meant for me.
I could have been in love so fearlessly that I could share myself in such a way that anything and everything about me was unmistakable.
Nothing would be questioned or left up to judgment.
I tried though. I dabbled a little.
I would allow myself to think or dream but also, I had fears and worries, or insecurities, and doubts that outvoted my hopes to dare the edges of my own existence.
Love is crazy
But so was I.
I was afraid to let my light shine because I was afraid to be too dim or outshined by someone else.
Or to find that as bright as I was, I was not bright enough or beautiful enough or good enough to the beat the standard,. Thus, I would be alone like a fool with my heart in my hand or otherwise unloved and lonely.
I shared myself too often and with the wrong people. I gave myself to situations that I knew were not right and then walked away with less than I deserved or bargained for.
However, there were other times when I gave too little to the person who deserved so much more because I thought too much.
I invested myself poorly. I spent myself where I should have saved and saved myself where I should have risked and spent everything.
Also, I believed that something was wrong with me.
I judged my versions of beauty. I judged myself according to a socially constructed idea of what love is or what I thought love should look like. Hence, I thought that love was either evasive or put simply, I believed that true love was not a real thing nor sustainable.
So why bother?
I believed that people connected to each other so they could beat the ideas of being alone—or perhaps the saying is true – people need people. It’s hard to stand alone.
It’s scary. So, we find someone to hold onto or we link our lives in a settled agreement.
And that sucks . . . Big Time!
I think that being needy, I believed that people linked together, like a chain links together, regardless of the links its been given, and either situationally or geographically or due to a social happening or even happenstance, there is a meeting that causes a certain comfort and passion need not apply.
I thought people stayed together more out of habit than they did because the truly loved each other.
And sometimes . . .
They do.
(Right?)
I saw love as a daring and brave idea.
I like this idea. I really do.
I always have.
I love the sensation I could feel running up and down my spine and the butterflies in my stomach.
I love the surge I felt and the lust, the heat, the passion, the appetite and the desire.
I love it all.
I loved the idea of seeing that one special person and viewing them in such a way that made them literally untouchable or unmatchable by anyone else.
I have listened to songs that say what my heart was never able to.
Music is funny when our hearts are broken.
Isn’t it?
Think about it.
Think about when times were hard or when the heart was broken.
I have heard songs come on the radio or out of nowhere—and almost taunting me, like a sick joke, I’d think to myself, “What the hell?”
Love . . . I’ll tell you right now, love is crazy.
And so are we, especially when it comes to love.
Love is the kind of thing that when heartbreak happens, love will make you crazy and pace the floor. You think too much about the worst possible things.
You wonder if anything was ever real—or was it just you and now you’re the fool.
Love is amazing.
Yes, it is.
I missed out on some of this when I was young.
I say this as an older man because looking back, there are lessons to be learned from love.
There are moments and times and memories that we can build upon.
As for myself, I started later in life.
As in, much later!
However, rest assured that the same as love is part of everyday life, so is heartbreak.
This is true.
But, Ah!
I remember the first time I saw a glimpse of what I thought love would look like—and I was right about this.
This is what love looked like to me then and although love has its similarities, love has changed quite a bit since then.
Fortunately, so have I.
I am more fearless now. I am ready and hopeful
when it comes to love or to find love.
I have not sworn off love nor crossed out the possibilities or the opportunities to feel love and go beyond the levels of my dream.
I could dare hell and the devil for this.
I swear, I could.
I am aware that love is not one-sided and that although times will come where one gives so the other can take—I understand that life is equally give and take.
I have to understand this and participate with this accordingly and not selfishly.
Love is patient, which is an area that I look to improve within myself.
Love has ups and downs. But love is always give and take.
But should this not be the case or should love become one-sided or one-way, then perhaps this might not be love at all.
I will offer you this with no advice intended. However, my offer is not to advise anyone but more, this is to offer an awareness. Love is rare and difficult and worth everything.
Love is precious and how easily love can slip away—if we allow this to happen.
Now . . .
There are a few songs from my past which have come up during hard times and loveless times. Yes, some of this music are songs that I heard when going through heartbreak. This was music that accompanied me during the emptiness of losing someone special.
This happened. No question.
I know there are songs by Van Morrison that I’d listen to, like Sweet Thing or Into the Mystic.
I used to think these songs were a great depiction of what love felt like to me.
Somehow, out of nowhere, or either randomly or purposefully, fate and destiny would pull a trick and a song would come on the radio, like a sign, out of the blue—like this morning
I heard a song by Carly Simon this morning.
And I never hear this song
The song is called “If It Wasn’t Love”.
I remember this from a movie that I watched when I was younger. Somehow, fate and destiny wanted to let me know that they see me. Maybe they want me to know that they hear me when I pray.
Perhaps this is why the randomness of the song comes on the radio,, and more cosmically or intentionally; perhaps this is the universe telling me, “Don’t worry, kid. She hears you . . .”
I hope so.
By the way, the move is called Nothing in Common.
This is a great love story . . .
I would have never dared to say this years ago.
But like I told you, I’ve changed, or at least I’m trying to.
The chorus is as follows:
“If it wasn’t love at all
What were all those feelings and why
If it wasn’t love at all
Can’t I just go on dreamin’
Can’t I just go on dreamin’ tonight.”
Dear Universe,
I have put myself in a place where I admire and love and yearn for the momentarily unreachable. I have made my mistakes and misspoke or missaid things that hurt me in the end.
Yet, I want this to be known.
I want this to be clear because somewhere is a person who is too afraid to try. They’re too afraid to dare because they don’t know how incredible this feeling can be.
No, they’re too afraid that feelings like this can never last, that love is only a tiny fizzle or a spark that can burn out like a flame if it goes uncared for.
I believe that only you can allow us to disprove this.
Love is real. Love is true.
And yes, love is absolutely fucking crazy!
Just like me. (For you.)
Maybe I should listen to what Fulghum said.
“Get found, kid!”
The Written Addiction 