Love and Some Verses

I am making another pact with myself to write regularly. I have done this way too many times over the years...but I guess I'll stop when I'm dead. Or when I actually start writing regularly (my bets are on death).

I've been thinking a lot about love lately. Concerning love, people seem to have a lot to talk about, but little to say. Love and some verses. Love's labors lost. Love won't pay the rent. And no one's gonna buy the cow if they're getting the milk for free (thanks, Mom).

What is love? An emotion? A feeling? If that's the case, I've been in love a thousand times over. Members of boy bands. Christian Bale in Newsies. The handsome boy studying for finals at Starbucks. I've loved professors, mothers, fireman, freshmen. I've loved a multitude of folks whom I've admired and imagined and known and not known. But what are those loves? What are they made of? Of what substance are they? They fade, faded, and will fade. They will shift and lope (but never E-lope). They will rise and dive. They will cloud and reappear in the form of something else.

If love is emotion, we are all grasping at banners.

Or is love a choice? Is it an action? Is it a calculated decision, a maneuver to capture a fleeting emotion and give it permanence? If this is the case, then what about all those nice boys in my life--you know the ones. The ones whose moms taught them right, whose parents stayed together through thick and thin, who knew how to buy flowers and cook dinners for no reason. How to pack my lunch with a note in it and to pick me up from work and tell me I look pretty and make me chocolates from scratch (yes this really happened). The boys who wined and dined and covered me with love and so spoke so comfortably and sweetly about our future together. What about them? Why didn't I love them? Why couldn't I love them? If love is a choice, why can't I choose it wisely?

Instead, I choose the boys who are smart and artsy and individuals. The boys with futures that stretch a million miles in countless directions with futures that move every-which-way--except for the way that includes me. The minimal effort boys. The ones who are nice at first and then forget. The ones who are so limitless in every way except for one. And that is in loving me. Their hearts are big, but not big enough. No ring or planning or shared dreams. No willingness to change. No hope for commitment. No dinners for no reason.

No chocolates.

I always love the wrong boys. I love 'em bad and I love 'em noncommittal.

I have got to stop, and I think I will. Because maybe love is a choice. And having fun together and sharing hobbies will not make a lifelong partnership work. Shared commitment, shared goals, shared work ethic. Shared choice. Both partners need to choose to love, and I am tired of flying solo. No more bad boys for me (sorry, Fonz)