life in a movie montage

I've had two major love affairs in my life - one turned out to be a major car accident, the other a big fucking train wreck. And then, in between, there have been some rather unpleasant fender-benders and missed opportunities. I think it's safe to say I might be a bit jaded; however, despite this well-known fact, I still love to be in love. Because falling in love is the fun part, and if I can relive that feeling a thousand times over, it won't be enough.

I will see a man on the street and instantly devise in my sick little mind some elaborate story about him that is probably nine tenths untrue, but I'll convince myself of his amazingness and pretend to know everything about him. When you love to be in love, the daily routine becomes speckled with chance encounters and flirtatious opportunities that bring a little rush to your otherwise ordinary day. In the three minutes it takes that sexy coffee barista with the gooey brown eyes to pump the vanilla, brew the espresso, and steam the milk to create a foamy cup of deliciousness (read into that all you will, sickos), I have already traveled through a whole movie montage in my mind of the passionate love affair I could have with him, consisting of every sappy cliche imaginable - from kissing in neon-laced streets, to playing and splashing in the surf at the beach. I take comfort in the fact that I’m still capable of daydreaming and romanticizing because it means the romantic inside me hasn’t completely shriveled up and died yet, despite having taken some repeated heavy blows to the gut recently.

I'm so grateful to have been in love in my life and truly know what it feels like - and here I don't mean random, superficial "love" with strangers on the streets, as fun and girlish as that is, but I mean the kind where you actually know the person well enough to appreciate them for being perfectly imperfect. There is nothing that will make you feel more alive than to absolutely adore someone for just being a human - crazy, imperfect and all. Same goes for the excruciating pain of a broken heart. I have never felt more alive than when my heart was splayed out on the floor and completely trampled on.

It helps while I'm missing someone terribly to think of the way it made me feel when I once felt so blissfully in love with him, and I can appreciate having that experience. A simple song can trigger a memory of soaring down the street in Ziggy (my old Civic), windows down, singing at the top of my lungs because I was so disgustingly in love. We bitch - or at least I do - about being tormented by our memories, but I do think that sometimes memories can help us through as well. And the sweet memory of what it feels like to be so insanely happy and enamoured of someone is enough for me - for now.