To play 6° to writing…since this technically isn’t a writing post:

(removal of old link and references)

It’s spring – I always come to this in spring, and again in fall, and sometimes around Christmas. It’s that time of year when even my arms ache with the gnawing want of something I can’t have. I’ve tried this time, but it’s not right. S. knows it and I know it but we take it for what it is and just enjoy what we have.

It’s that wraith of the past that won’t go away and stay away. It’s that laughing, twinkly-eyed prankster that whispers just as I’m about to fall asleep, that brushes the hair from my face just as I’m waking.

I didn’t love D. until it was too late. I found him mildly amusing, and more than slightly alarming and absolutely, definitely charming. He made me laugh, he took care of my kids during a crisis and he threatened to do bodily injury to the person that destroyed my sense of security in my own home, all before I’d ever really met him. I couldn’t be safe at home, so I went to our mutual friend’s… and the rest… We became friends of a sort.

It wasn’t until nearly a month later, the first time he touched me (flicked my brand new helix piercing for which I eventually had my revenge by slapping his brand new pectoral tattoo as hard as I could) that I felt that spark, only it was like being struck by lightning. I’d never felt that before. Ever. Not even with my ex-husband and we’d been together for 13 years. When D. and I were together, it was all sparklers and fireworks and fighting just to make up and mixed signals and messy arguments (coughblushahem) and life.

So, someone asked what true love and love at first sight are. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced ‘at first sight’ (George Strombolopolous does not count, ladies), as my ex and I had met years before (in school) before we ‘re-met’ later on. If it weren’t for that, yeah, that’s my experience with first sight. Aren’t you always told to throw that one back?

True love – (removal of old link and references) – true love is the kind that just happens, happens hard and fast and you feel it from your hair to your toenails and it HURTS. The happy is so strong it overcomes fear, overcomes the mundane, and overtakes everything in your life.

True love is when you can say “I want you forever, and love you beyond time, but you need to go”, when you can stand there and watch your love get on a bus and watch that bus pull away knowing you made the right decision for him (or her) even though it means you’ve torn yourself apart and you’ll never be the same.

True love is when the happy and the hurt never truly go away.

I’m sure if D. ever sees this, he’s going to laugh his gorgeous butt right off, too. I swore up and down for the five months (yes, only five) we were together that love is just a word. I hate it when I’m wrong.