I lost my head when I opened my heart. All the reasons to reverse it continuously get countered by reasons not to. Now it boils down to which reasons are more potent. They may be matched in number, but in strength?

How do you kick someone out of your heart? Especially when they didn’t even fight to be there, but you invited them in without their knowledge? How do you expel someone who has made you so extremely happy? . . . By remembering that they have made you equally miserable.

But, for so long, I have always loved someone. Ever since I was twelve, I have been in love. Ten years with one person . . . and then they were replaced by another. One that, based on all gathered evidence, I was going to fall in love with eventually anyways. And so how can I blame myself . . . or defend myself? Yes, I know exactly where I could have stopped it. When I could have. And at the time I knew this fact with astounding clarity. I knew I was falling in love, I knew it wasn’t a good thing, and I knew it wasn’t a part of my plan. But, I let it occur anyway. I did. I made a foolish decision. I didn’t block my heart. I didn’t reinforce the shields or bar the windows. I didn’t take precautions. I didn’t harden the soft and yearning flesh of my heart, like I should have, like I’ve done for so long. Because, once upon a time ago, I used to be smart.

Oh my, but did I used to be smart. I fought against intruders, I logicked my way out of emotions and over-imaginative hoping. At least, whenever I did allow my mind to wander to all the possibilities and might-be-if-we-did-this’s, I always remembered to provide a rational unhappy ending. Some event to ensure that the outcome would be cancelling, would devastate and demolish. All before anything came anywhere near my heart. Because, it was already inhabited by one person, and I was determined that it remain that way.

As silly and unprecedented as it may seem, I am an incurable romantic. I love Love, and all that it stands for and all that it can do. What we are capable of when we are caught in it. Maybe it’s because I fell in love at such a young age. I still understood that love, the real thing, is not transitory or superficial. It is long-suffering and pierces deep. You can’t rip it out by will or trample it to death. Real Love is a surviving thing. And, boy, did I love.
A very, very unknown fact about me is that I am one of history’s greatest lovers. I am capable of loving at a level of profundity and sincerity that most mere mortals don’t even know exist. No one can love like I can when it’s true and I let myself. But I alone hold this information. I, alone in this room, with only a kitten for company, know just how much love I am capable of giving and at what strength. Perhaps it is because nobody else knows about it that not a soul wants it.

But . . . that helps no one. Particularly not me. I am lost right now. I am moseying aimlessly, uncertain as to where I’m headed and none too enthralled with arriving there. Right now, the question that is burning brightest in my mind and spirit, the one that refuses to go away, the most pressing matter at hand is, Who am I if I’m not a person in love with another person?

Where does that leave me? For so long, long enough for it to ingrain itself into the fabric of my being, into my identity, I have been in love. But, now I love someone who has effectively flipped the middle finger at my love and said, No thank you. And so I must give up on him. I should have long ago. This won’t be the first time I’ve had to quell my feelings; to extinguish the flame that he refuses to let stay cold and dead. But it will be the worse. The other times I wasn’t in love. My heart wasn’t speeding along full-throttle, turned inside out, slashed up while simultaneously sewing itself back together. Meanwhile, my head is shaking itself, grimly wondering just how long that dang heart can keep it up, when it will ever learn. Is your heart separate from you? Can the heart make decisions on its own, without your say so? Where are you when you don’t want to listen to your head, but at the same instant want your heart to quit? Where am I?

How can I be me if I don’t love someone? The person currently inhabiting my raw and battered heart replaced the person from before. He truly seems to have been gently, almost thoughtlessly, removed. Not even removed, but faded out. Like a forgotten piece of furniture that has been there so long that it now blends in with the walls and soon you forget it’s there entirely. And when you do remember it’s there, it’s a little hard to make out, and you no longer know what your feelings are.

So, the resident for ten long, beautiful years is gone, and the current rent-free personage doesn’t want to be there. What do I do?

The answer should be simple. I should fight for me. But who am I? I know, I have always known, that I am More. I know that I am constructed of More, and that I can offer More. I am well aware that this quality makes me singular, but it still feels so far away from the core of me. The core. The fabric. My DNA. What’s that?

How can I force myself to fall out of love when Love doens’t work like that? And even if I find a way, what will become of me afterwards? What will I be? Just a shell? Just a hollow, rattling, rocking-in-the-wind shell? . . . Would that be so bad compared to how it is now? When someone has rejected love from one of the greatest lovers in history, doesn’t that make him a moron? And is it really all that wise to be in love with a moron? Logic says, No. Reason says, No. Rationality says, No. Self-respect says, No. Pride says, No.

But . . . Love consists of none of those things. Love is foolish. Love is ridiculous. Love is preposterous. . . . Yes, yes. . . . But love is also wonderful. It is capable of so much more than all those other things combined. If allowed to, that is. If not . . . admittedly, love tends to get in your way.

It is right now for me. And so, it seems, the best solution is to realign my heart with my head again. To patch up that poor, festering organ and put it to rights once more. Maybe . . . maybe it will be good for it to be empty for a little while. That, at least, is all I can hope for.