I Believe In Love

So I've been thinking about that children's book of mine that I rewrote.

Essentially, it's a love story. I wrote it for my boyfriend, for his birthday, when I was in my early twenties. It's basically the idea that you meet a guy, and you just know, and he's the one that completes you. He's the one that makes it possible for you to be your best self. Together, the two of you can go to places and do things that you can't do on your own.

So basically it's about what goes by the name of "co-dependency" these days.

*sigh*

What happened? I mean, that idea has been around since at least Socrates. How is it that in American society in the Twenty-First century, the whole deal has fell into such disfavor? These days, if you expressed such ardor and passion about someone you just met, most likely your friends would be giving you numbers of good therapists, right? C'mon! You just met him! You have no idea what he's like.

It's that 'romantic comedy' version of love that I hold in such low regard. They meet, and the music swells, they look into each other's eyes, suddenly they're both bashful, stuttering, but then they're separated. Something goes terribly, terribly wrong. He screws up. She's angry and refuses to see him again. He asks his best buddy if he should just forget all about her, and best buddy tells him, "Dude, she's the one for you," so he gets on a plane or something and makes an idiot out of himself or defeats the terrorists or explains what happened and she agrees to marry him right there on the spot. Right. And then there's the part you don't see, where she finds out he declared bankruptcy two years ago so it will be five before he can get a mortgage, or he says he wants a big family with six kids, and she wants a dog and that's it, and it gets awkward and they go their separate ways.

But wait a minute. Why is Brokeback Mountain so compelling? Not just to me, but apparently to people across the country? A story about two people who weren't expecting it, and in the case of Ennis Del Mar, really didn't want it to happen, but there they were, head over heels for the next couple of decades.

And just why was it that I thought about this story after fifteen years?

Why was that?

Perhaps there's a baby lying out there with the bathwater. Perhaps something in me wanted to break into my conscious mind with a message... something along the lines of, "It's not too late, idiot!"

Ah, but there's another issue. Is it too late? Romeo and Juliet were barely into their teens. Is it possible for a man in his forties to fall in love? By this time, all of us have been burned, severely, any number of times. Things are going great, and then you look across the breakfast table and wonder, "Who is this guy?"

Curiouser and curiouser.

And yet, and yet...

Let's go back to the source.

In December, 1989, with the Baron, we went up to NYC from Philadelphia, where I was living, to take part in an ACT UP demonstration. The demonstration was exhilarating. That night, we ended up at Chip Ducket's Mars Needs Men party. It was packed. To the gills. I had barely entered the place when I saw this guy staring at me. Well built, olive skinned, huge dark intense eyes, neat buzz cut, black tshirt, black jeans, jump boots. He approached. He was totally nervous. Stammering. He said that he had seen me at the demonstration, and when the ragtag remnants, lead by the East Village anarchists (remember them?) had lead some of us downtown to Tompkins Square Park, he had dogged my steps. He had told his friend Sue that he had never seen such a beautiful man before (meaning me). I went back with him to his apartment. We spent the night together. He lit candles. He played a recording of theMozart's 'Queen of the Night' aria that he loved while we lay in each other's arms. That was Sunday night, so I called in sick at work. (Usually when we went to Mars, the Baron and I would take a 4:30 am train back to Philadelphia, and I would run home, shower, change clothes, and go to work. Those were the days... Trying something like that now would land me in intensive care.) We had breakfast at Polonia, a greasy polish diner on First Avenue. We wandered around the city. He couldn't keep his eyes off me. I couldn't keep my eyes off him. We talked. We told each other about our lives. We kissed deeply and passionately in public several times.

We fell in love.

I started getting cards and letters from him. He was all I could talk about. He would come to Philadelphia on weekends, or I would go up to New York. We spent New Year's Eve 1990 on a jetty surrounded by the ocean in East Hampton. Six months later, I found a job and moved up there with him. Me and my cat, Ned. He was alergic to my cat.

He turned out to be a verrrry jealous guy. He didn't like my kinky tendencies. He had trouble finding a job. I worked to suppport us both, and my job paid not so much. I did all the cooking. He was a vegetarian. I became a vegetarian because he was a vegetarian. I would get pepperoni pizza on my lunch break. The sex started to be not so great. Then the sex stopped. I moved out. One night he made a huge scene, coming over to my new apartment and ringing my doorbell, calling me repeatedly from the payphone on the corner. I decided I wanted to be single. I wanted to date a leatherman. And be a leatherman. I would go to the Spike on Friday nights, and across the street to the Tunnel bar. We went to counseling with Dr. Charles Silverstein, who bilked my insurance company. (Yes, that Dr. Charles Silverstein.) One night in therapy, Dr. Charles asked me if I wanted to get back together with him. I said I didn't. Dr. Charles asked him, "Did you hear that?" He said he did. Dr. Charles asked me to leave so they could talk about that. That was the last time we spoke until we had lunch together after a chance meeting after I left NYC. We still email back and forth now and then.

So. What did falling in love with that dark eyed beautiful man get me? I moved to New York, and made the city my home. I came to a deeper understanding of who I was, and what was important to me. I had some wonderful times, that resonate still. I wrote him a children's book for his birthday. There was heartache and turmoil, but I have to work harder--a lot harder--to remind myself of that.

If I had to do it all over again...?

That's an impossible question to answer.

But what would I give, to meet a man who confessed to being all but overwhelmed with desire for me, to not quite be able to comprehend this, because he's so hot, he could have anybody. To have my days and nights filled with silly wonderful romantic little gestures. Cards and flowers. To lie awake in bed, listening to him sleeping beside me, feel his heart beat, watch his closed eyelids flutter, and wish I could die right there because it's all so perfect. To fall in love.

I am older, and, I hope, wiser now.

What would I do differently?

Recently, I was introduced to a term in psychology: unconditional positive regard. It describes what (Erikson felt?) a therapist should feel for his or her patient. Not love, just unconditional positive regard. A sort of radical buddhist acceptance, I think. He is who he is, and who he is, is good. Yeah so he gets bent out of shape over things that you consider to be trivial. Yeah he gets moody. Yeah he makes some bad decisions. He is who he is, and who he is, is good.

I think after your dopamine and norepinephrine levels start to return to normal, after that initial craziness, that's what has to fall into place.

And who knows. Maybe it's possible to spend the rest of your days, or at least several years after that, finding ways, again and again, to fall head over heels in love.

Huh.

Huh.

I wonder.

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