Love Crack

In the words of the mighty Robert Palmer: Might as well face it, you're addicted to love.

It's true. I am.

People ask me, "Falcon - when you put together all the time that you spent with this guy, in real time, face to face, it amounts to like, 92 hours. How could you get so hooked in such a short time?"

It's like asking someone who just tried crack, "How could you get so hooked from just that one time?"

Some love is like pot - it slowly grows on you. Some is like acid - it takes a while to kick in and sort of sneaks up on you. Some is like Extasy - makes you feel good until one day you realize you're rotting from the inside and have to stop.

Well this love was crack. And I was addicted. And in truth, it was more than 92 hours. There were at least three months of long distance wooing and getting to know each other and the biggest addictive drug of all time - emotional intimacy. And the whole thing spiralled wildly out of control, like a brushfire that comes too close to the city. The whole thing happened in what I call, "reality show time," which means that the actual dimensions of time shifted when we were together, spreading out exponentially, so that an hour becomes a day, a day becomes a week, and a week becomes a month. I know of what I speak. I was ON a reality show. And so these 12 weeks (including those 92 hours) felt like something else. In fact, it was one of those scary situations when you meet someone and you feel as though you've known the other person your whole life. Not like you're starting from scratch, but like you're picking up where you left off.

But it was crack. The more I got, the more I wanted. And he was dealing me more than I could handle. And because it felt so good, it was hard to see the bigger picture. It's only when you're out of love, when you've been detoxed, that you can see the damage that it was doing to you while you were on it.

So now I'm clean. But it was a rough three days - standard detox time. I had all the classic syptoms; I couldn't eat, I was nauseous, I had the shakes, and of course bouts of hopeless crying. But now I feel better, if somewhat...emptier. It will take a while to fill up I guess.

It's also been a little bit like aversion therapy. You know, when someone tries to get a kid to stop smoking by making them smoke an entire pack, or eat a cigarette? So that every time they see a cig after that they feel sick to their stomach?

That's how I feel now.

I've had people ask me out on dates, and I go, thinking, "This will take my mind off things - see? There are other fish in the sea, he's not the only one with options, etc. etc." And then I sit there with some nice guy, and I look at him, and I just start to feel my stomach lurch into my mouth. I get a little barfy. Seriously.

I see a nice-looking fella on the street, and I think, "Hey, he looks like a nice - " quick, hand covers the mouth, swallow it back down, breathe a little.

Even the thought of Love, right now, literally makes me sick to my stomach.

I think that's a healthy response though. For now, at least. I need to time to heal.

My last analogy of the day:

It's like I've been shot in the chest. And I'm objective enough that I can look down and say, "Gee, that's gotta hurt." And let it hurt. I mean face it, a sucking chest wound is going to be a little painful, a little sensitive for a while. But at the same time, I've agreed with myself that I'm not going to get sucked into the whole, "Well if I was younger, smarter, prettier, funnier, then I wouldn't HAVE this sucking chest wound!" I'm getting healthy enough to realize that perhaps these things are not related.

My only fault is for walking in the path of the shotgun to begin with. But hey, shit happens.

At least I'll have a really cool scar.

- Falcon

The Devil's Final Chapter

So he calls me up a few days ago to chat about some writing we've been doing together. We talk and laugh and exchange stories and notes for an hour. He yet again reiterates how great he thinks I am, how close he feels to me when he reads my writing, etc. etc. He then gets all excited about the possibility of coming down to my part of the world for a few days to help me with this project. "I'd LOVE to work on this. Do you need someone to take a look at it?" he says. "I think I have time. Let me just check my schedule. "There's one thing I would have to drop out of but I could make it over for five days here... But wait, what do YOU want?" He asks.

As if it matters.

I tell him of course I would love it if he came down for a few days, I'd love it if he could work on this project, I'd love to see him again, so soon.

He says, "I should tell you something." He tells me that being with me has changed his life. That the time we've spent together was so wonderful, it made him realize that he didn't want to be dating all these different women he's been with recently. He wants to have a girlfriend. And I've inspired him to get serious. Beat. Beat. Beat. With this other girl.

I'm not kidding.

After another hour on the phone of being in shock, listening to him talk, I hang up. I receive this text message on my phone: "This time I mean it. I love you."

Okay, let's analyze the syntax here. "THIS TIME I mean it." Cause the other times I really didn't. But now, now that it's too late, now that it's MEANINGLESS, I'm going to mean it. Gee, thanks. That makes me feel better. In fact, I feel so great that I want to have a few shots of tequila and lie down to celebrate, except that I'm immobilized with grief. Maybe later.

From here on in it gets a little dramatic. We are both rather dramatic personalities - him on the surface, me deep down. He writes me a letter the next day AGAIN going on and on with the "...thank you for changing my life I love you I'm in love with you and even though we can't be together I will always have you in my heart I hope you remember how beautiful and wonderful you are thank you for everything you've given me I'd do it again in a second and when I read your last letter I cried where I sat you broke my heart again when I thought it couldn't be broken anymore..." etc. etc. etc. Seriously.

What is the point of this? Why is he telling me about how I broke HIS heart right after he told me how he loves me so much that he's going to be with this other woman? And he says we can't be together as if this is something that has HAPPENED TO US, as opposed to a choice he made.

He's lost his mind. And I am shattered. He calls me his Viola, and now I am truly shipwrecked; at sea. And he's making it worse. Actually, forget Viola, I'm Rose, floating on an icy door from the Titanic in the middle of the Atlantic, and Jack has managed to slip into a lifeboat while I was asleep. He's shouting over his shoulder from the lifeboat as he's paddling away from me, "It's breaking my heart that I won't see you again - I'll never forget you!" while I tread water going, "Wait! But I'm not dead yet! Come back!"

Further dramatics; I send him a letter telling him of his unspeakable cruelty; I call him my Chupacabra - Mexican Vampire Bat. I tell him that to thank me is grossly inappropriate and cruel, and that it would be better if he just said, "I'm an ass." I tell him the gods are kind - I had spent four days with him, while auditioning for a job I didn't get, which at the time seemed like a drag, and now seems like a blessing. I tell him how the gods have spared me the "daily humiliation of your happiness." Seriously. I say that. Because apparently I'm living in a Dostoevsky novel.

We engage in a battle of literary wills. I ask him, the Devil, to answer one more letter where I goad him to be funny and cruel, and explain how he's "Just Not That Into Me." He refuses to play along, and sends a self-serving missive about how he loves me SO MUCH that he's letting me go. Because he has a Higher Purpose for me on earth. So apparently the novel HE'S living in is "The Yearling," or "Born Free" where he gets to love me and set me free and cry because he misses me. Only in this version of the classic animal tale, I was doing just fine until he came along, lured me home with lumps of sugar, then broke my leg and THEN tried to set me free. And there I am, confused and limping in circles around the African Veldt while he drives away in the jeep, crying and singing, with his arms around the pretty gazelle in his lap that he's taking home instead.

Ah, but stop with the metaphors already. What happens next?

I get a text message saying, "I'm an ass."

It helps.

The devil's last letter ends, "See you in the hereafter," which if I understand it correctly, means,

See you in hell.

- Falcon.