How it feels

It feels good. Very good. 

I thought it wouldn't ever happen again. Honestly. It sounds melodramatic, but after being with an impassioned artist for three years (off-and-on) I was convinced that I could only fall in love with someone who could inspire strong negative and positive emotions. I thought that I would be doomed to either feel lukewarm about a stable, relatively normal guy OR to be with an unstable, but passionate artist/musician/dancer type. 

No one had ever made me feel the extremes of emotion that this ex had made me feel. I was crushed beyond recognition (I felt at the time) when we broke up the first time. I was traumatized when he was dating other women, even though I was with other men. I fell instantly back in love with him when we'd get back together. I thought, "ok, so this fighting, and off-and-on elation and misery are the key to being in love" I believed that someone more easy going or less angsty would not be able to make me love him the way I loved my emotionally fraught relationship with the artist.

It's funny. I think everyone should date someone who drives them crazy. I think everyone should be ridiculously in love with someone who will break his/her heart and who will have his/her heart broken. He once said to me, "I've never felt as passionately about anyone as I do about you." And I believed that I could never have that feeling again.

Then, as the problems bubbled more and more to the surface, and the inevitability of my leaving became clear to me, I was willing to leave that passion behind. I knew I would never be happy, and so I resigned myself to never feeling like that with someone else. I knew I would love someone else, but I thought it couldn't possibly be as good or deep.

Time passed, and as the old song goes, "time is a healer," something I really believe. I let my heart heal, even though it was me who finally left, it still somehow felt like it was him. I made mistakes, I slept with two different best friends and hurt both of them on my path to recovery. I moved to a new city and began a new life.

But I never forgot that I would "never" find love again. Then, I met him. My new boyfriend. And he is everything my ex was not. He is relaxed. He holds down a job. He is "book smart" and likes to read. He has been with 2 women rather than many. He isn't intimidated by my intelligence. He is gentle and sweet. And he loves me. And I love him.

God, it's amazing, but I feel so good. I love him like I thought I couldn't love anyone, and it's better this time. There isn't the terrible low to accompany the high. There aren't the irrational fears and depression. He makes me happy and I motivate him.

Funny how life turns out. I guess I need to remember that we can always find someone who makes sense for us, and we really can fall back in love.