in pieces

I am really good at being friends. I mean it. I have never met a man or a relationship where at the end of the day, we couldn’t be buddies. Some would say I like to keep my exes “wrapped around my pinky” but that isn’t my game; I’m fingerless and ready to pal up, whether I’m the dumper or the dumpee. I have loved all the men in my life, hard. They have been my best friends, typically for 1 to 1.5 years, which is a nice percentage of my 22 years. And I couldn’t imagine them not being in my life after the fact.

Weeks following the breakup, it’s customary to rehash those nitty gritty habits you despised about your ex and wonder why you ever found him attractive, why you even dated him. Years after, you think how you’ve outgrown him, how young and stupid you might’ve been. I’ve never regretted any of my relationships, despite shouldering three over the past four years. They were all handsome, funny, smart, and wise men whom I will always love in some capacity. I don’t wonder about my past choices, I remember: his goofy smile and warm brown eyes, his salsa moves, his strangely sexy white lab coat. These things are committed to memory so I don’t fall into the trap of loathing what I once loved. You lose faith in your own judgment if you practice this too often.

It’s a tricky matter, to confess that you’ve been in love multiple times. People don’t like to admit it; they like to check the “once” or “twice” box. Check the “many times” box and you obviously:

a) don’t know what love REALLY is
b) are a whore
c) are a diehard romantic (which is interpreted by most men as desperate/needy)

Most multiple-timers are accused of option a), mostly because it seems the least offensive, and well, it appears logically pandemic for most young whippersnappers who haven’t yet “seen the world” or “gained perspective”. I say, bullshit. The big L is one thing, and one thing only: when you believe it completely inside and out, in that very moment, then you’ve got it. Who cares about longevity, stamina, staying power? Romeo and Juliet didn’t have to prove their true love by surviving 30 years in a sexless, supportive-yet-judgmental marriage. Oh sure, we assume it would have worked out, but c’mon, how do we really know? That whole double-suicide tragedy seems a LITTLE too convenient for me, Shakesy. (You want a real tragedy, let’s read about Romeo getting fat and unappreciative, Juliet growing into a paranoid nag, and how they eventually resort to incest to satisfy their sexual needs. Billy didn’t have the balls to write that one. But that’s neither here nor there.) Yeah, el-oh-vee-e is elusive. You wonder if you really had it after parting ways. I mean, we couldn’t have, right? Otherwise we would’ve made it, we would’ve walked the distance, because the big L is all-powerful, all-conquering, isn’t it?

None of my relationships ended in a dramatic double-suicide, but a small part of me dies inside every time. I give away pieces of my heart, pieces I can’t recover. But I see them, dangling in front of me, when I eat with exes, when I drink with them, go out with them. And I am tempted to reach out and snatch back my piece, my bloody, beating mass of pain. It would be so easy, to slip it back into my chest, like the edge segment in an unfinished puzzle. I want to, but I know it won’t fit like before. The curves are all wrong, and the cardboard is frayed at the corners.

I am afraid, as I lose more and more pieces, that I don’t have enough left in me to love someone new. How do I turn back time, make myself whole again, love as blindly and passionately as the first time?

But then I check inside, and I am surprised to find other puzzle pieces. Ones that don’t match my heart–but they are blood-red and robust. Looking up, I see E., see him staring at his piece, dangling inside of me, catch temptation flit across his gaze.

And I understand, and am afraid no longer.