More, More, More

First things first - My agent fired me today, in an brief email, before I could draft the letter to fire him (which I have been writing in my head for weeks). As of the last day of May 2006, I am not represented. Yay. This is a good thing for me. This means I get 10% of my income back... which I plan on using to start a retirement fund, through my employer. Because of my age, I plan on being mid-range aggressive in my 401k investments. Any suggestions on funds (we are through Merrill Lynch), email me privately.

Now, onto the real reason I sat down to write tonight.
A recent email conversation has me thinking about love and all that...

[friend] I've been curious to ask you about your references to liking someone "too much," etc. Is it your fear of being hurt in a relationship that makes you say that? I'm afraid we have to open ourselves up to heartbreak before we can truly let ourselves fall in love.
If your fear is that you fall in love too quickly, well then you might have an issue. I can relate to that problem somewhat, but at least I can go to my grave saying that I had no regrets.

The reality is that I fall in love very easily, and often. I was asked a few weeks ago how many times I had been in love, and the answer is probably 6 or 8 times. Each time is different, like each heartbreak is different.

I've also had some very powerful crushes over the years. I've also had my heart stomped on and shattered, and in most of my relationships, have the break-up-ee, not the break-up-er. Chalk part of that up to my stick-to-it-ive-ness, and part of that up to my powers of denial. (You know when something isn't going right, but you ignore the voices telling you so because you want to make something work.)

I've screwed things up at the beginnings of things by being over-keen. I've had a guy (in college) tell me I was being (and I quote), "too girlfriendy". (BTW, this was after he had phoned me and asked me to come over because his parents were putting their childhood dog down, and he didn't want to be alone.) Post college, a guy I really liked (who lived in a Portland, when I was in Eugene) called things off for basically the same reason. I fell hard, and it scared him. And then he later regretted some of his decision, as he would occasionally email me to find out how I was doing, and express his regrets (and other things).

When you (and by "you", I mean me) open yourself up fully to the groundswell of mutual attraction, like, and even (gasp) lust, you open yourself up to the greater pain of rejection. Or to being used by unscrupulous, uncareful men (boys, really).

So, as I've gotten older, I've made efforts to keep all that in check, to move a more careful, measured pace into relationships. Hasn't really worked, to be honest. I really only add a level of anxiety to the whole proceedings. Even when I'm not the first one falling, I still end up being caught up in the whole thing, and moving too quickly into relationships. It's always heart before head in my world.

I totally understand the concept of "in love with love". Feeling the first flushes of something can be so heady, giddy, wonderful, a rush. There's something to be said for walking around slightly dazed and stupid. It's the rest of it that is confusing.

Ah, well. Such is life, really. Love is the drug (as Brian Ferry said), and Love is all we need (John-Paul-George-Ringo).

The other thing that trips me up is my history of "non-relationships" / "un-relationships". The ones where we are going out (spending time together, making plans, and all the rest), but they don't want to be pinned down to one girl, or to admit that we are together. Why have I put up with this? I'm still working on the reasons. But it is something that goes back to High School with me - MP & DR from the high school era, RM from college (god, did I try to make that boy love me), and most recently B.

My friends think I'm such a strong person, but I don't think I am, as much as a strong personality. When confronted with attraction and the possibility of love, I become a marshmallow. Why else would I have put up with the constant semi-rejection of B and the others before him? DR from high school was seeing THREE girls at once, but we all thought we were the only, and didn't understand why the other two were hanging out and calling him. I was the most steady of the three, but, in retrospect, that had more to do with the fact that I had a car (I was a year older) than how much he did or didn't care for me.

So, I guess these stories illustrate my reluctance to fall too hard and too fast, as I always do. Because when I fall hard and fast, I open myself up to pain, rejection, and loss of common sense. I just hope in my future, I can keep as level-headed as possible whilst also following my heart.

I want to have the certainty about my love decisions as my friend above did. I want to be able to say I have no regrets, but that isn't true. There are things I regret - things I did and didn't do (to this day, I still wish I had had a chance with KM when it was available, but it passed). There are times I regret. And there are times that make me laugh and smile and say, can you believe I did that?