I’m Not Ashamed To Admit That I’m Addicted To Love

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Everybody has an addiction. Me? I’ve got two.

Well, actually, if we’re being really picky here, we could argue that I’ve got an addictive personality that grants me a lot more than two. In bikini season, I get addicted to the gym. In any other season, I get addicted to cupcakes.

There are times where I get so addicted to an outfit that I wear it every single day — until even strangers in the street are thinking seriously girl, get some new clothes already. And on more than one occasion I’ve been so addicted to a certain song that I’ve played it on a constant loop for three weeks.

But if I really had to narrow it down, I’m addicted to love and writing.

I adore them both equally, even though they have caused me to be caught in some kind of addict’s paradox. There are times when the addictions are so relentlessly unforgiving that I’d give anything to be clean from them. At the same time, the thought of removing either one of them from my life would render it void and useless.

I know you’re trapped in the same paradox. Trust me, I feel every ounce of your pain.

Seriously, I often pause and think how simple life would be if I wasn’t compelled by these addictions. I’d plod through existence, content that my thoughts consisted of nothing more exciting than where to have dinner on Friday night or what the traffic will be like on the way home.

Instead, I’ve got a brain that’s constantly alight with ideas on how I can play out my own glorious romance, and listening to the conversations of the people all around me, trying to figure out ways in which I could tell their story.

I have a brain that knows I’ll never find what I’m looking for in the mundane. 

No matter how hard I try, I just can’t ignore the fundamental truth that I want a life of unrealistic, unapologetic, unashamed, out of this world, romance – where everything is beaches, log cabins, and gazing at the stars.

More importantly, I want a life filled with creating wonderful stories — ones that are worth telling. For me, a life without either of these is no life at all.

I want a life where my relationship is everything that I want it to be. And that’s okay. I’m allowed to hope for that.

It’s wonderful to have that vision. But at the same time, it can also be the most agonizing kind of pain to feel something that strongly in your heart, all the while not quite knowing how you’re supposed to make it transpire into reality.

Because you understand that two things — whether that be two people, or a person and their own dream — just fit together. Like those best friend necklaces that are each one half of the same whole. It’s possible for them to exist independently, but they work a whole lot better when they’re joined with that specific other half.

But sometimes that other half gets lost or it’s a struggle to even find it in the first place. When you realize that, the pain of the addiction kicks in. In feeling that pain, you come to appreciate how incurable the affliction is. That’s when you really start to worry for yourself.

Like how I worry that I’m going to spend my life on a relentless pursuit for a life that doesn’t exist. A life that can’t ever exist, because it’s just too dreamy.

Life is supposed to consist of unromantic relationships and boring day jobs. It’s supposed to consist of plodding along, pretending to care about things that don’t matter, watching TV programs that you can’t stand, and buying a load of shit you think you’re supposed to want. That’s life. It sucks, but play the game anyway.

I worry that it’ll never work out the way I want it to. That the reality will never match up to the ideal I’ve created in my head.

Ultimately, nobody knows how it’s going to turn out. You could waste your life, or you could get everything you’ve always wanted. There’s no way of ever being sure, and that’s the real scary part.

The only thing I can be sure of is that the only thing worse than not finding a way to feed our addictions is the painful idea of giving up on them.

Who seriously wants to wake up in ten years time never having tried? It might make us the winners of their game, but let’s face it, it’s a game that we never wanted to play anyway.

So sure, we can expect a lot of people to say that we’re too idyllic, that it’ll never happen, that we’re only kidding ourselves, but we’ll just leave them in their reality while we’re off making magic happen in our own.