Hopelessly

I've never understood the phrase

hopelessly in love.

It's in all the books,

it's on TV.

Characters meet their special someone and bam

they're free falling

but they have their safety nets

parachutes 

with them.

I've never understood it because -

I liked a guy, once

I liked many guys once

I liked many many people in general

but this one I liked and he finally liked me back

and even though I liked his best friend at the time I figured...

Why not?

Which is,

obviously,

a terrible way to go about a relationship,

especially when he was all blushy flirty and came to care very

very 

much about me.

So that was that

nearly a year of my life

all while I had this nagging obsession

with the addictive long gone bestie I'd had my eye on since day one

a living breathing old flame

people say "old flame" but this was literal.

He is

fire.

Not slang fire.

Fire burning burning into the atmosphere and for awhile

I burned with him

for one precious year of elementary school

I got swept up

and I couldn't detangle myself and so

it impacted the one I was supposed to care about

who I got together with because I wanted to feel wanted.

Recipe for disaster.

Me and "my" guy pretended to ignore the fact that someone else

was very much in the center of my mind

that I was preoccupied

and he was mine

but I wasn't his so

eventually he gave up

accepted it

"moved on" (he tried to, this year I think - hope - it finally worked)

understood that my I love yous weren't something I thought about.

Because for him that came easy.

For him

if you love someone you say so

if you feel it you hold them

if you want things you tell them.

He told me maybe a little too much

and I was, what

eleven?

Two kids playing the role of an old married couple

of course it didn't last

but I made it last long enough that it hurt him because

I didn't know what I was doing and he did.

Or he thought he did.

Some was right

some was wrong but -

I learned what I want and what I don't want

because of that

I learned who I'm looking for and

honestly isn't always the best policy.

To filter but open my heart.

I digress.

Hopelessly in love is what I've heard in poetry or

stories or 

Disney movies with Prince Charmings at the end of every tale.

But I've been through it once and I know

the difference between a crush and a love

I still have questions but I think

this time I'm content to free fall

because my parachute is nearby 

at all times.