Love Is the Drug

After having pretty much totally given up on love and marriage (though I still give myself the hope to have sex now and then), I felt the butterflies again, and I thought I'd been reborn.

Suddenly, my life was no longer half over. I still had half of my life left to love.

The fireworks were breathtaking and intense, heart-pounding and spectacular, but all too quick.

I am an addict, so I couldn't get enough.

I can never get enough.

And although you'd think that this little taste of love, this renewed passion, may have set me on a course of Sandi getting her groove back, it's done exactly the opposite.

This ostrich is putting its head back in the sand.

This armadillo is rolling up into a ball to protect its soft middle.

I'm not strong enough for this. My heart can't bear breaking anymore.

I didn't want to do this again. I didn't ask for this. I wanted it to be over. I wanted my time to have passed. If I could accept that, then I could move on, instead of loving people who would never love me back, instead of chasing a smidgen of love which is so much less than I deserve.

Yes, I know I deserve love, and to be loved. But I don't think it's ever going to happen. So I'd like to just move on now, please.

I want to stop waiting for the phone to buzz.

I want to stop wondering what's wrong with me, and feeling that I'm not good enough.

I want to stop trying. I try so damn hard.

I just want it all to stop.

Those brief high moments of pleasure are not worth the terrible crashes in between, the horrible lows of sleepless nights and swollen eyes and empty arms, and a heart that aches not only for this one, but for every him and her before.

But I am an addict, and I have a taste for a particular kind of drug, a particular kind of love that does me no good in the long run.

And as much as I want to maintain my sobriety from it, there is no dealer I can stop calling. There is no anonymous support group or rehab center. There is no specific place to avoid encountering it. Just when I think I've successfully run away from it, or it's gone away on its own, I get a fleeting vision of it, pick up its scent, and hunt it down, jettisoning me off the wagon once more.

I can't help myself.

I've been struggling with a reason to get up in the morning most of my life. I still wonder what makes life worth living. And the one thing I can point to as the most likely answer – love – is the one thing that will lead to my ultimate undoing.

You cannot live for the drug, for the drug does not live for you.

Related Post:
Feast or Famine
This Addictive Life
The Worst That Could Happen