I Was In Love With Him, He Was Only In Love With The Moment

The only time I ever fell in love was when I was on the road.

I was working doing my passion, playing music each night. You see, I’m a musician, a traveling one. A different city every night. And what comes along with that is the opportunity to see the world on your own terms.

He came with me.

Before we left, I remember my body pressed against his while we whispered secrets to each other, only a thin sheet covered us, tangled between our legs but it was okay because it gave us an excuse to keep touching. Looking back we shouldn’t have needed an excuse.

I told him to come because I wanted to show him the best place to dive into the ocean where there is a tunnel that leads to some pools trapped between rocks, and if you’re lucky, you can see the seals.

I told him to come because there was this older woman I wanted him to meet down in Port St Lucie who was an absolute trip. She would tell you stories even if you didn’t want to hear them, all while eating her crab legs on newspaper, spread out on the table and inviting us to join her. I told him to come because in South Carolina, there was this tree, a tree…bigger than most houses. Its limbs were larger than a car, and being in its presence could simply take your breath away.

Looking back, I should’ve been reason enough for him to come.

He came.

Our lives were filled with non-stop passion; he kissed me at all the perfect moments. There was always an undeniable spark in his eye, when he looked at me, when he looked at other things. We traveled to places no one would bother going but it was an adventure no one would have ever had. He called me Wild.

One night, after we had made love in the shower of some old motel, we laughed and drank cheap wine and he said I was his piece of the Wild; to be with him, to show him how to add meaning to his life. He thanked God for getting the chance to know me. Did he know that you couldn’t keep Wild forever? Did he call me that because he knew I wouldn’t last?

I held his hand one day as we jumped with faith into a pool of water that consisted of all these mini jellyfish.

When we were done scrambling out, he offered to pee on me because he heard somewhere it took away the pain.

I told him that was “true love” and with those words we were both brought back to reality but for only a moment and he replied, “Nah it’s just what friends are for.” My stomach knotted and I promised myself I would never say those words again. We both recovered from it and were shot back into the wild. This lasted for 5 months and 16 days.

I had been on the road before, I had been to a different place every night, I had slept in my car to catch the sunrise over the oceans of the east coast. I knew what to expect when it was all over.

But this was new to him. The light in his eyes started to fade as we began our last long stretch of drive home. I was worried. But also naïve, so I dismissed it. I convinced myself we had shared so many beautiful moments together that it had to last beyond all the thrills. I was holding onto him by anything I could find and I was breaking my own heart doing it. We had been home no longer than 4 days when he called me to tell me he loved everything we had been through together, but he couldn’t force a feeling to come back that just didn’t want to.

My heart was broken. I couldn’t breathe. If this is what it felt like to lose love I never wanted to have it again. I spent weeks trying to figure out where exactly we went wrong, I gave him so much, everything, I was there when he learned how to live life with meaning.

Then it hit me. He was in love with the moments. Not me.

He was in love with living, with life. Could I blame him? He was in love with the thrill, and the spark in my eyes. But I wasn’t the moment for him, I was only a part of it. When that ended, so did I. I wasn’t meant to be in his life forever, even if he was meant to be in mine.

This was a lesson for him and me. Don’t fall in love with the moment and think you’re falling in love with the person.

Misleading a heart is not something you want to have done; how unfair, for someone who is in love…while the other is simply in love with just everything else.