Maybe love is never appropriate?

I wonder sometimes about the idea of love. Most especially lately about the idea of falling in love with someone....inappropriate. (how I hate that word, even at the best of times I always feel like there's a sneer in that word)

It's been awhile since I've had a "special someone" in my life. And I have to say - the last person I loved, and was loved by, was beyond inappropriate. That relationship was ill-advised at the best of times and suicidal at the worst... but that's not what I'm thinking about now.

These days I crush easily; almost never pursue any of it and then, eventually through time or familiarity or new girlfriends, the crush dies. I don't really "put myself out there" very much. My deepest feelings these days are reserved for those friends who have become like family: daily fixtures who I adore and would hate to lose but who I would never think to think of "in that way" - because it would be inappropriate.

"You can't help who you fall in love with."

I used to believe this absolutely. That love was beyond your control - you love who you love and sometimes that's not very healthy and sometimes it works out beautifully. I'm not sure how I feel now. If you don't acknowledge a feeling, if you repress it and don't allow it to grow - does that mean you are preventing yourself from falling...? I wonder about people who fall in love with someone who is married, someone too old, or too young for them... someone "inappropriate". Could they help it? Did they want to? Do those people just throw caution to the wind and say "I love this person" and chase that dream to it's conclusion?

I think the words appropriate/inappropriate are far too intellectual to apply to my idea of love... I think I'm trying to follow that example and intellectualize something that is much more instinct, pheremones, illogical feelings... so many things that are not intellectual.

It's just been on my mind.

Because I am almost never "appropriate".

It’s like they blotted out the sun

She’s going away. She’s been sunshine personified to so many of us and now she’s moving to where the waves hit the sand. I was remarkably unprepared for this. I had no idea this news would hit like so many more tonnes of bricks. I’m used to people going away (I’ve gotten used to it; and I know they usually come back) and let’s be honest, she hasn’t been around forever or for often.

But I feel a piece of my heart travelling on with her. (I have a feeling I’m not the first). I feel a diminishing of the light – especially that special light that hit the far corners of my heart, found the dark places and said that’s ok.

She burst into our world like one of those sparklers people light on New Year’s Eve: bright, sparkling, making us smile, giggle, feel like it’s a better place. Above all she made us dance. She could even make strangers dance – I’ve seen it happen.

And now she’s taking those sparkling blue eyes elsewhere. And the sun in my world doesn’t shine quite so brightly.

I know the continued rhythm of hello and goodbye. I worry less about it than I used to. But this one brought tears to my eyes; unbidden, almost unexpected but immediate in their sting.

God I’ll miss her.

He made me turn the music off.

It was instant.

Like a warm wind that suddenly stilled.
A carousel that stopped turning.
A car thudding to a stop after a flat tire.

All desire to do...anything...left me.
My smile turned to a sigh;
all motivation ceased.

I just can't clean the lobby without music to inspire me.

You'd think....

... with the number of songwriters I know that my wistfulness over someday having someone write a song for me wouldn't seem so unrealistic. Sadly, I don't think I'm inspiring in that kind of way. Not lately anyway.

I almost purged this desire (in that "be careful what you wish for" way) when I first heard a Paul Bellows song in which he answers another woman's pleas for a song with "OK Diane, here's your fucking song" and I don't think it's the kind of song "Diane" had in mind.

sigh.

Aaahh, warmth.

Today the sun felt warm on the denim of my jeans. I love those first days when the sun starts to overcome the winter; when people go out in spring jackets or fleece sweatshirts; when the temptation to wear summer shoes is only quelled by the piles of slush that you must wade through to get to the car.

For whatever reason it has me thinking about the summer and festival season; camping; disc golf; road trips.

I know it's still months away but at least we've now had the hint that summer will come again.