I’m Looking For Love But Not Really

I haven’t been my prolific self of the past decade, in 2016 and I intend to change that. It’s not that I haven’t been sharing. I’m realising that I am the kind of being that needs to share. It feels good to let it out, to bleed in the open air. It feels good to care, unabashedly. 2016 brought me the opportunity to do that in a space that used to be inhabited by fear – the stage. 2016 allowed me to reclaim it and make it a place of power and acceptance. So I think this blog will forgive me for not being as present.

The year ended well. I loved, I spoke, I lost, I won, I drifted, I grew. Everything taught me something. Nothing broke me. Several things healed me in surprising ways.

There were men and boys. There were almost affections and fleeting intimacies. There was even Tinder, that went away without any burn marks.

Somebody threw out a, “You’re looking for LOVE” at me in a way that made it seem like an insult, an accusation even. Was I? Am I? Yes, yes I am. But not in the way the world understands love. Love is not committment. Love is not relationship. Love is not even relating. Love is not companionship. Love is not sex. Love is not duty. Love is not family. Love is not friendship.

I am looking for love in the way I experienced it when I was 20. So engulfed by it, it took my breath away. So consumed by it, I ceased to exist, the object of my affection ceased to exist. All that was, was a universe clouding, blinding, covering everything else in wild rush of colour.

I am looking for love the way it swirled into my life, possibly around the time I turned 16, though I’ll never really know, it was so insiduous. Love that curled its way into my being and wore the disguises of lust, friendship, combat and many other names.

It wasn’t him. It wasn’t about him. Maybe it was, a little bit. But mostly it was about who I was, who I was becoming and how quickly this was happening so ‘I am’ and ‘I’m becoming’ were both the same thing. It was the age, it was the universe at that very moment. Maybe it was the magic of the 90s. Maybe it was just love.

Love is more than an emotion. It’s that experience, that universe that settled over the planet I called home a decade and half ago. I thought it shattered when he broke me. But it left such tenacious fragments embedded in parts of me that I’ve bled everytime I’ve encountered one in the years. I’ve hated it, I’ve feared it.

And now I am ready for those pieces to knit themselves together. Or maybe a new universe to form itself around me. I know it did once so it could again. I can feel it, drawing from the fluid, strong nature that has become me.

I am looking for love, like the kind that is making me write this right now. Anytime now it’s here. Already.