I'm Head Over Heels In Love (...For the 4th Time)

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I've been IN love about three times... until now. This is the fourth and probably the scariest of them all! Whenever I date someone, I normally wait on them to drop the 'L' bomb and if I feel it is right, I say it too. The thing that many people do not realise, is that there is a HUGE difference between loving someone, and being in love with them.

I loved many of my exes, but I was only in love with three. (Actually 2 of them weren't exes, just friends I fell for, but that's a story for another time). Point is, even though I was using the 'L' word, the meaning behind it was far different from what you'd expect. Yes, I cared for them and thought of them a lot and wanted their happiness, but it wasn't the feeling where I felt I couldn't be without them and that I wanted so badly to be a part of who they were.

Fast forward to my current love. It's the love that makes me excited, nauseated, happy, miserable, angry, sad, clingy, dizzy, insecure, playful, energized, satisfied, fortunate, uh-mazing and free; simultaneously!

It's like my first time on a roller coaster at Six Flags. It was the ride where they turned the rider over for half the ride and I felt so afraid but so excited and when I came off I felt so nauseated, but I wanted to go back on immediately! That's what loving this love feels like. The first time. A feeling of great anticipation for something that can be so sweet or go incredibly wrong!


love everywhere
Image: Nisha A via Flickr

The reason it's so scary is because we've been back and forth for the past two months. It's like another ride I went on at Six Flags; very rocky and mind blowingly terrifying! I screamed the entire time, so much that after the ride, the girl beside me had to check if I was okay. The difference with these two comparisons is that I don't want to go back on that ride, but I don't want to walk away from this love. So I find myself buying a ticket and standing in line for what seems like an eternity, just so that I can experience this incredible feeling over and over again.

I'm used to being a very decisive young woman. I know what I want and I work to get it. In relationships, when things start to go south, I usually come off at the next stop and wait for a better, smoother ride. With my most recent ex, I hopped off the train and back on the same one over the period of two years. But that made sense to me because we had already been through so much and we were (or at least I was) so in love. I revisited that familiar train ride (because of the history) until one day I realised that the train was going in circles; essentially nowhere at all, and I hopped off for the final time.

With this love, there isn't much history. We haven't been through some really messed up situations that led to us coming out stronger than ever as a couple. We aren't even a couple. So then it makes me wonder why I cannot leave this one alone. It's so hard sometimes, not to love my loves, but to understand them and fight for what we have. When I start to come off the train, I move slowly and before both feet have touched the platform, I'm back on. And around we go again.

For a time it felt so stagnant. Like, we have a connection and we feel this love, but that's all it was.  I thought, A connection and love can't make it work if it's just not working, yet I held on. Now we're in this place where we don't know where we're going, if anywhere. We just want to be a part of each other and try, because "Where there is desire, there is gonna be a flame... but just because it burns, doesn't mean you're gonna die. You've gotta get up and try."

That's all I can ever ask of love. Try with me. It may work out or it may not, but at least we'll know in our heart-of-hearts that we fought as hard as we could and loved as much as we could.

That's the advice I have for everyone who is trying with love...

In this moment, I am so incredibly, head over heels in love! I see you and I feel your love and your kind spirit and you're everything! And you make me so darn happy.

Forever yours, Sam.

