My love life is... (Love is...)

I.

"So tell me why you're here." 

It always began that way; the cities, names, and buildings may change but never their questions. I recall hating their introductory assessments, wondering why they never looked at the previous files to get these immediate answers, so we could get to the actual root of the problem instead. Perhaps it was a way to make sure my story was straight, that I hadn't left some important detail out with the others, the one detail that would "solve" all of my problems. Or at least, explain them. 

"I fell in love with a boy..." I could never keep myself from laughing at this point; playing off the cruel reality of my history became second nature to me. A part of me knew my situation wasn't genuine, nor as serious as I had allowed it to inflict my life as it had, but I also knew it wasn't something I could handle on my own, nor run and hide from. I had attempted that by running out of the state twice already. 

At this time, I am twenty-one years old, sitting in a plush white love seat, in a plush white room. The Savannah humidity has already begun to penetrate the brick walls surrounding the two-story house, causing perspiration to drip down my arms only to bead and gather at my wrists. I had been living on this side of the country for over six months, but I still wasn't used to the effect it had on my body. Having lived in Seattle, Washington before this, I believe my body simply missed the rain and so decided to drench me one way or another. 

"Is that why you tried to kill yourself?" It slipped out of her lips like it was old news, or as if it didn't have an effect on her, which it probably didn't. It didn't really faze me either, not as much as it had the week before when I had taken the bottle of extra strength Tylenol. The entire bottle.

"Yes and no. I mean, what triggered it was the baby. But, it was his lying to me, and then leaving me that really pushed me towards attempting."

"Do you still feel that way?"

"God no, after spending three days at the mental asylum, I knew that wasn't where I wanted to be."

"At the asylum, or dead?" I could see where I may have slipped up. I felt that suicide was never going to fully leave my life, I had been caught in the idea since I was twelve, but I wasn't ready to trust this person in understanding that I wasn't serious about killing myself then, however "not ever" was the different story. So I lied. Which you shouldn't do with your new psychiatrist, but I did anyway, because at the time I wasn't trying to get help, just trying to prove I could still attend school.

"I don't want to go back to the asylum, nor be dead. After I took those pills, and failed at attempting to throw them back up, I knew what a mistake I had made." She seemed to be satisfied, so I continued with my original explanation.

"You see, when I was in high school, I was in love with this guy. He was my fiancé."

II.

His name was Damien. That wasn't his real name, but he preferred it to the real one. In my opinion, it always suited him better; it brought to mind someone rougher and somewhat romantic, like Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, or El Wray from Quentin Tarantino's Planet Terror, not like his real name. His real name was cold, almost unemotional, more your average-Joe than the passionate scorpion Damien was. 

There are people in your life that teach you how to be a better person, who you admire for the things that they did, or are. Damien taught me about love, not by his actions, but by the actions he didn't take. He was my anti-hero, my hard lesson in life, the biggest regret you can't stop thinking about, nor stop wanting. To this day, I can only shamefully accept that I am still as enthralled as the day I took notice of him. The real him.

Our beginning played out like most teen-romance films; we were classmates who barely spoke to one another because we hung out in "different crowds", a situation brought us together, and we clicked. The beginnings are usually the easiest, perhaps because neither of you really expect much to come from the encounter, especially during the years when your hormones are doing most of the driving and physical urges overpower logical reasoning. 

The twist was, I had been living with undiagnosed depression, which was exacerbated by my previous abusive relationship, for years. I had no aspirations, no real individual interests, I followed anyone willing to lead me, and I continuously held myself back so as not to disappoint anyone. I was driven by this unexplainable level of guilt, that the people in my life at the time played on, thus leading me to believe that my self-worth could only be found in the eyes of another. 

(Don't get me wrong, I had a loving family, they did the best that they could with the chaos that always surrounds three daughters, but sometimes, as the youngest, it wasn't enough to give me a backbone in the ego department. I don't blame them for this; I don’t blame them for anything. )

Damien was what I needed back then, he took my own crutches away, and even when I fell and begged for them back, he would just sit there patiently until I understood the importance of what he was doing. At first, every lesson felt like a punishment that I deserved for some wrongdoing, especially when he showed me compassion and admitted he loved me. The biggest lesson was when I finally believed that he actually did. But he didn't stay as what I needed. But I didn't know that back then, or at least wouldn't admit it.

I used to believe he was my Noah from The Notebook, devoted even with the limitation of the time we had together, believing we would make it through no matter where our lives led us. I still believe it; even after all of those years of losing that part of him, there is still that lie of his that I refuse to let go of. After his interests strayed the dozen or so times, after his words lost their sweetness, even after I fell into the pattern like Sandra Cisneros' Woman Hollering Creek with him, I held a delusional loyalty that I admit had become an obsession. I was Jean Baptiste Racine's tragic heroine, fastened onto an idea of love more than the admittance of reality. But it was that idea that pushed me forward in life.

I met other people, forced myself out there, whilst still continuing to strive for self-preservation and self-reliance above the honest pursuit for someone to "love" me. Through the years, after falling for the extreme opposite of what Damien was, and still ending up in a similar if not worse predicament that led to meeting the aforementioned psychiatrist, I began to pick through what was "my" reality. Discarding my inserted nuances, and forcing myself to reflect on where my actions had begun to lead me, I slowly began to discover my own definition of love, outside of what I had been spoon-fed by modern media, family, friends, and old experiences. 

Love is acceptance. You accept the people you love for who they are, for who you are to them, for who you are when you are with them. You also accept when they hurt you, when you hurt them, and when it inevitably ends. The truth is you have no power over your emotions; they can be either hindered, or shadowed over, even ignored. But they don't die out, or fade away with time, nothing does. But you also need to accept that lack of control, as well, because love is nothing more than living. It's just another experience presented to us, another choice that is either taking us down one road or another. 

Damien made the best choices he could, because they were just part of who he was then. If I didn't accept him for that, then I couldn't accept the truth of anything. He will continue to affect my life, because I let him be part of my life from the get go. Just like everyone I have ever met who is part of my life, will have some effect on me, there is no way of undoing that. If it weren’t for the actions he didn't take, however, I would never have reached this level of "loving", "living", or whatever you wish to call it. 

III.

I continued to see that psychiatrist for the few months I remained in Georgia afterwards, and even though we met every week, twice a week, there wasn't a moment that her words triggered something in me until the end.

"You know, Cory, you went through all of this and you've never once been angry. If I were you, I would have yelled at the top of my lungs. Kept that anger inside of me until I never wanted to speak to them again. Why didn't you just do that? Then you never would have gone back to any of them."

"Because I was never angry at them, I was only angry at myself."

She, of course, didn't understand. But I knew better, because no one can make your choices for you. They can influence you, tempt you, seduce, or charm you, but in the end you can still decide which road to go down. As Jean Paul Sartre stated, “For human reality, to be is to choose oneself; nothing comes to it either from the outside or from within which it can receive or accept…. it is entirely abandoned to the intolerable necessity of making itself be, down to the slightest details.”