Love Me For Now

By

“Do you think he likes you?” For a moment this question stumped me. I couldn’t think of a satisfactory answer to give her. I try to paint my view of the world in bright and vibrant colors so as to offer a little sunshine to someone else. That’s not the view I have of my own personal world. The vision I have for myself is often bleak and desolate. But she didn’t know that. She doesn’t know the monsters that live in my head. But her question was forcing me to reveal them, maybe just a little.

There is no way to reveal your demons in a nice or friendly way. That’s why I felt compelled to paint the world so maybe the demons of others wouldn’t be so terrifying. And very rarely am I ever asked a question that forces me to examine my own. Of course the inner voice running a constant montra in my mind is forever forcing me to face my own reflection and the monsters under my bed. This girl though didn’t live in my head, doesn’t know the darkness that haunts me. Hell, she hardly knows me. So her question threw me and I was forced to be honest or as honest as I could be.

I don’t believe it’s possible for anyone to really love me. I’m not the girl that boys gush over. That men find alluring or even interesting until I speak. I make men laugh; but I am the last woman they think of finding in their bed in the morning. I’m sure the thought would cause most of them to shudder in revulsion and I’m okay with that. I made peace with who I am a long time ago. I’m not afraid of my reflection, I just recognize its deformities.

Because I recognize these deformities, I know that it isn’t really possible for him to love me. The qualifier here is not only romantically but platonically. It isn’t even in the realm of possibility that someone—anyone could truly love me because I am transitory. You thought I was going to say something else? That I have a terrible personality, I am some type of woman harpy, a siren that draws you in with pretty words and a song on her lips but sends you to peril and dashes you against the rocks? No. I am exactly what I seem.

I have a great capacity to love. In fact I could find something to love about most people, even those I don’t particularly care for. I will give everything I have in order to help someone who is down. I give freely of my time and attention to whomever may feel they need it. I love making people feel better and feel loved and cared for because I know what it feels like to not have these things. To be lost and no one looking for you. I know how it feels to fall in your own pit of despair and not be able to resurface. I have been there and I would save the world from it if I could.

I am a nurturer. I will try to fix you. If you ask me to fix you, I am in my element. So, no it isn’t impossible to love me. It is impossible for you to continue loving me after I have given you everything you need. As I said, I am transitory.

For a while you’ll find yourself wrapping your entire world up in me. You will call and I will come and that can get addicting. Over time I will rebuild those broken pieces of you. Glue those shattered fragments, and smooth out those fractures until you are once again the incredible and invincible you that you were before you knew me, before you needed me. And because you’re strong and capable again, you don’t need the love I have to offer. My tools for repair are no longer needed so I am discarded as if I had no other purpose. As if I couldn’t be more. And again I am lonely. A casualty of another transition.

You would think after a time I would learn my lesson. But I don’t. I can never turn someone in need away. I can never slap down a hand reaching toward me for help, acceptance, or even a listening ear. It’s not in my nature. So the cycle repeats itself; and I give of myself knowing that I will lose. It is the way of my life. There is no escaping it.

So when my new young friend asked me if he likes me, if he likes me enough to love me, if he loves me my answer to all of these questions is, “He likes me for now. He loves me for now. He will forget me soon.”

My lover came to me broken. And though he has seen vast improvement he still has some way to go. He still battles with the loneliness that gnaws at as all from time to time and cripples me daily. He’s doing so much better already and in such a short time that I fear the end must be coming soon. I’ve worked so hard to help mend that broken heart.

I called him my lover. He’s different from all the others I have been so desperate to assist. I love him. I love him with every breath I take and thought I send into the universe. He inspires me to prose and verse. His voice calms me and he makes me laugh like no one ever has. He speaks to the very essence of my soul. And when he leaves it will break me. But that is the way of things.

I am transitory. He likes me for now. His love is for someone else entirely.