love

for most of my close friends- they will simply laugh and shake their heads at my next statement.

i've been in love before. i've fallen in love before. I've loved before. usually when i give my heart to someone it's completely and it usually takes hell or high water to steer me from that course. and i usually fall to a million pieces when hell comes crashing down. then after a LONG recovery process- i tentatively step back into the ring again. Usually I'm bruised, battered and bleeding- but i take a deep breath and then plunge. Better to have loved and lost, right?

Wrong. Dead wrong.

Whoever thought of that obviously never loved anyone. Whoever wrote that obviously never lost anyone. They don't know how breathless you feel when you look at them. How your entire body starts shaking just by thinking of them. how you smile when you hear their voice. how you warm inside by looking in their eyes. how your life is better just by knowing them. how your heart skips a beat when you hear them say your name. how joy fills the room when you hear them laugh. how nothing is better than the feeling of being in their arms. how you can tell the world to them, and never run out of things to talk about. how the safest place in the world is in their world, their peace, their soul. how home is them. They don't know how it feels to have that home ripped apart. how you can't breathe when they leave. how you can't function without their voice in your head. how you can't stand without them to hold you. how you can't smile without their smile. how you can't live your life without them. how everything you once loved, you once leaned on is gone. The light, the warmth, the joy, the love- dead at your feet.

Some would say it's better to never feel, to never put yourself out there so then you never get hurt. There is some validity in that. I wouldn't have cried half the tears I've cried over the years, or had my heart broken so many times if I hadn't risked so much to get there. But then who would I be? where would I be? what would i be? The twists and turns of life are the paths we have to follow to get us where we are. As Rascal Flatts say "God bless the broken road that led me straight to you." and it was broken- many times. There were days I didn't think I a- ever put the pieces back together or b-find all the pieces at all. But here I am. And up until recently, I was pretty happy with the stitched reflection staring back at me.

Now the winds of change have viciously ripped and tore at me until all my pieces are back on the floor- scattered and shattered into a million pieces. and the glue i would need to put them back together- i already used on up on someone else. SOmeone who needed it much more than I did. Someone who needed my support and my trust and my love. Someone who needed to be put back together and held together to face the many storms still to come. I knew that was where i needed to be. I knew that was what I needed to do. what kind of friend/person would I be if I hadn't? but now you wonder- what is left for me? When I need to be put back together- will there be anything left? and now that they're "okay"- do they even need me anymore? I need them in order to breathe, to face each day, to get out of bed. But do I even register in their mind or heart anymore? or after I serve my purpose, do I get thrown on the bottom of the pile- only to pulled out again in dire straights? but what kind of condition will I be in at that point? When I spent every moment hoping and praying to get out from the bottom.

perhaps it is better to never love- then you never lose. but you lose out on all the wonderful, beautiful parts of it all. Parts that I wouldn't trade for anything. Parts that are now the best memories of my life. Parts that I hold on to because right now, that's all I have left. Parts which are hanging on my a thread. I don't have enough glue to keep them together for very much longer. Then once they're broken- there's no going back. Once I'm broken- I'm lost.

I'm lost now- lost in your eyes, lost in your smile, lost in your touch, lost in you. And without those eyes, that smile, that touch, that voice- I'm lost. and once i lose it all- i lose life. only have so many days left- I don't want to lose another moment. letting you go will be the hardest thing I've ever had to do. and I honestly don't think i have the strength to do it. this heart just isn't strong enough. i can't lose you again.......i'd be broken beyond repair. all thanks to love.

by this point, my close friends will just shake their heads and look away. it isn't better to have loved and lost. because once you lose it, nothing gets better. it's not getting better. you haven't even left yet and I'm dying. i'm losing. i'm breaking apart. but i wouldn't have changed a thing.