for better and for worse

Originally posted 5/8/07 on my MySpace blog.

wistful
Originally uploaded by gkp.

I think everyone has one. That one person from your past that makes you feel something, emotionally, physically, every time you think about them, talk about them, see them. You can't help it- no matter how far you've grown past that relationship, you always get that feeling, that twinge, that urge, that dampness in the eyes, when you think about him/her too long, or maybe just at all.

I have that person, too. I thought that things would get easier in time- guess what- they didn't, not for me. Time only amplifies the feelings that I have.

I am a happily married woman, with a wonderful child that I love more than anything I've ever contemplated, and this old feeling is not due to a lacking in my current life. This feeling is deep seated, ingrained in my psyche, and impossible to rid myself of. And I'm not sure I would want to.

It's a reminder to me, a reminder of how fully, and deeply, and absolutely I loved, in a way that I honestly never will again. And that is not to say that I don't love my son, or my husband, because I do, deeply, and in ways that I could have never imagined just a few short years ago. But it is different. Not better, not worse, just different.

The younger me believed in love beyond all understanding, and passion, and soulmates, and fate. The older me still believes in all that stuff, but knows that it's much easier and much more sane to base a relationship on compatibility, and mutual admiration, and friendship, and plans. Neither is right and neither is wrong. The later love has a stable quality that makes me feel content and happy nearly every day for it. The younger love still alternately wrecks and fills my heart whenever I allow myself to think of it. And I feel very grateful for both.