…the night I first met you, or that afternoon.
As the sun lazily draped over us. As you held me the first time. Smiled at me, like you cared about me. It was nice, yes. Pleasant. Satisfying. But I didn’t know I’d love you. They say that you just know. The truth? I didn’t know for a long time. Long after the point when they say- if you don’t know- you should leave.
I didn’t know how I felt about you when I invited you over the next time and the next. I didn’t know what I even wanted. Did I want you to love me? I couldn’t even answer that. I was tired and I didn’t want to think about that. I just wanted to feel and be with you.
So, no, it wasn’t love at first sight. Truth be told, I don’t even know what that feels like. Lust at first sight, yes, but love…? What does that mean, anyway?
Friends ask me, “How do you know?”
How do you discover love? How are you sure they are right for you? How, well, how did -you- know? I mean, you’re in love now, yes? So how did you know when it happened?
When what happened? When a bolt of lightning filled with hearts and rainbow glitter struck my body? When Cupid’s arrow pierced my heart? How did I know what? That this was now a person to whom to bind my life with theirs till death do us part? Ummm. I’m not dead yet, thank you very much. I’ll let you know how it goes, I promise.
I still, if I’m honest, don’t know with many of my loves.
I still doubt love, especially when they leave my sight. Do they still love me, I wonder? And then I see them again, we reconnect, perhaps we hug or kiss. And I remember, yes they love me. Could be him, could be familial love, platonic loves. I question them all.
I should know, but I don’t. Even after decades of near daily “proof.” What more do I need, you ask? I couldn’t tell you. But those insecurities push through to my the surface of my conscious, nonetheless.
Did you know that you loved, you know, her?
You thought you knew that she loved you, master. You thought you knew how she felt about you. You aren’t easily duped, and, yet, well, here you are. And there she is. And neither the two shall meet.
I cannot say I was any better. I thought I loved a lot of people. I was so sure of it. But now I don’t remember their names. So how real could that love have been? Or maybe it was, but no more real than the love I have with Him.
Love isn’t more real, you see, simply because you know.
If you ever do. Oh, I know we want it to be true. That we’ll be struck by a wave of overpowering emotion. It’s a nice fantasy, but after all fantasies are rather empty at the end of the day. I prefer a bed weighted and warmed by another body or two. Someones to snuggle me tight on both sides all through the night.
So, no, I didn’t know you would love me the next day or the next. I read that if you don’t know it’s love in six months, you should move on. Except I didn’t. And here I am. And here you are. And nobody is going anywhere.
I know you love me now. In this moment. And that, I think, is all that matters.
