Love as a Drug

I have spilled much ink and spent many trips with you in our discussion of human connection. And we’re no closer to understanding than we were when our trips began. I often feel as if I’m standing on one side of a wide chasm, shouting across, and wondering if the response I hear comes from you, or if it is my own voice echoing back to me. It seems to me, on my side of the canyon, that the search for unity with another is behind much of the world’s unhappiness. You, my odd friend, conduct yourself as though you’re above matters of the heart. But in my candid moments, I sometimes wonder if you take the stance you do because love, for lack of a better word, is a game you fail to understand, and so you opt not to play. After all, if I truly had the purity of all my convictions, I wouldn’t regret so many of the things I’ve done nor would I persist, against so many of my better instincts.

I find you a challenge, one that, in spite of all that you’ve done, continues to stimulate. In every relationship that I find myself into I want to through myself into it and have a full “love” experience. Yet, you stand there looking at me with a smug smile telling me “we are bigger than that”. We keep having those arguments, you and I, where I keep telling you that people need second chances that despite of our convections maybe this specific time “it” will work. Yet, you keep winning. Maybe I created you to take care of me when I am vulnerable and sad. I can always see you taking over when I cannot manage and you always make the tough calls for me. Shortly after you disappear and I stay.

Hunter S. Thompson is quoted as saying, “Love. The word means different things to different people. To some, love is a fairy tale. To others, it’s a nightmare. But for me, love is a drug. And like all drugs, it can be good or bad, depending on how you use it.”