Invisible Spears of Love

You know what's not true? It's this . . .

"If I feel this sure, it MUST be true."

That's just not true.

Today I have been thinking a lot about love feelings . . . or lust feelings . . . or that absolute, crippling pain you get just under your heart when someone catches your fancy. And you think to yourself, if I'm feeling it this deeply, if it's making me this sick and light headed and distracted, it must be true! Because certainly I wouldn't feel sick if there weren't these little rays of love shooting into me from him. Right?

But you know . . . it ain't true.

Little rays of love between you don't exist.

I can make myself sick thinking about someone, seeing them walk across a room, sitting near them. I can make that horrible, piercing pain appear under my heart when I take a fancy. And it is so painful and so convincing and comes so absolutely out of the blue, that I convince myself it must be some phenomenon. Some physical thing happening to grab hold of me so completely.

But it ain't true.

I must always remind myself to fall back to the basics . . . if you have to ask, it isn't on.

Luckily, this time, I didn't ask.

And isn't timing something? Tomorrow, I'm leaving for a long vacation. And today I got confirmation that the wing-span beauty from the meeting is dating someone else in the office. Aren't they adorable? And today I found out that my girl friend recently took up with a guy who, a million years ago, took his name tag from his parka and sent it to me as a remembrance. He's now married. But, I guess, not that happily so. She's torn up, blaming him . . . but she slept with her married friend. I have little sympathy . . . but I still feel sad, none the less. Sure, I don't want to be sleeping with my married friend. But I would have liked a little follow-through on the whole name tag thing, a million years ago.

Ah me. What isn't to be, doesn't become. It doesn't manifest. Little signs, like kissing feet, and getting nervous, and sending name tags, just don't mean dick.

When it's on, it's all the way on. And you'll know it. Right?

Because there aren't little rays of love. And there isn't physical magic. And I can't sense another's secret feelings from across town.

There are only real actions, real questions, and real declarations.

And that's it.