Love Hurts
letting a girl child spend time with other men
Sometimes I wonder if maybe, that moment when I realized I had to choose between life and death, if maybe I actually did die, and everything that’s happened since that moment has been what’s left of my mind letting go of the earth I knew. The three years since then have been a parade of the people and the things I knew, some I can see rising, some I can see falling. I’m present among them, but not in the way I knew. Am I dead?
I have a friend who’s been looking for a boy to like. Well, she wants to find love. I’d like for that to happen. She deserves love. I’ve been helping her. I figure she has the part about what kind of boy she likes down without me, but I’ve been working with her on what sort of boy she should let like her back, which is tricky. Some boys make your life more. Some make it less.
It’s scary to think she’ll be in there alone without me to throw yellow flags when her suitor starts his shit. I know what she looks like. I know what goes on in a boy’s head. Unfortunately, these boys don’t know there’s a polar bear in her corner, just itching to make bitch-boy stew.
Using the internet to ensnare my precious charge is such a terrible idea. They might as well get in the cage with me and lock the door themselves. Hello, boys. Daddy’s home. The last I heard, the plan is for me to have my way, then if there’s anything left, her actual dad can make bitch-boy kibble for his dog with the rest.
There are around four billion women in the world. I figure she’s the fourth most important after my sister, her child, and her own mother, which is a long story, but a valid point. When she’s at work, I text her, “You know you’re my favorite, right?” Technically, she’s fourth favorite, but it still counts.
I don’t know anybody who hasn’t been hurt by love. Even people whom you look at and think, “Why would anyone ever hurt them?” have been hurt. Some were hurt more than more mortal people.
I knew a girl who was generally considered one of the most beautiful women at the University of Mississippi. Since I’m being nice, I won’t call our (academically) rival school something funny and derogatory. Catch me next time. If Ole Miss girls were Goldfish, like Willie Morris said, she was a barracuda.
She loved a boy that I also loved. I might have loved him a bit more. He struggled between his love for her and his career, which nearly broke her heart. The best I could do was continue to show her as much attention as I could until he figured out his priorities. Sometimes, women just need to know they’re worth the time. I told her one night, “If you need to know that you’re still beautiful, look in my eyes.” At a trade show, I bought her a herringbone gold chain bracelet just so that for one night she wouldn’t be so sad.
Eventually, they found their way back to each other. I was relieved. More for him, really. She could find anybody who struggled with their career, but how far would he have to search to ever find somebody who pined for him like that? Nobody ever pined for me. I wouldn’t let them.
I’m not sure what men need to know. When I was Little Bird’s age, all I cared about was honor and valor. I think I achieved that, to a degree, but it’s not a path to happiness. I was miserable beyond reason. I was, however, a gentleman. A gentleman who smoked, ate, and drank everything in sight. One night, one of my favorite bartenders asked, “You do go home sometimes, don’t you?”
Recently, an old friend read my stories. “Wait, you were ever in love?” She asked. I whispered a single name in her ear.
“I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!” I’ve been made aware recently that my ability to hide some things wasn’t nearly as developed as I thought.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Probably the same reason I didn’t tell her. As long as her life was safe, happy, and fulfilled, that’s about the best I could ask for. Asking her to be with me would just be asking her to be with all my problems. A gentleman wouldn’t do that.”
Sometimes men make all these grandiose promises and proclamations, but then when it’s not immediately reciprocated (usually sexually), they say “eh, forget it,” and walk off. To me, that’s a sign they were lying all along. Love has to be able to stand on its own, with no hope for reward. Otherwise, it’s just an elaborate form of codependency.
Love has always been synonymous with death in my life. That may be the root of the problem. In Romeo and Juliet, the phrase “to die” at first means sexual climax, but by the end of the play, it means actual death. It’s not just me. Love and death have always been closely tied. Look how many animals die once the father has spilled his seed and the mother has laid their eggs. If you think your love life sucks, consider the sockeye salmon and count your blessings. Life, it seems, isn’t actually for the living.
I told Little Bird, “Think of the Ice Cream Bar at Sal & Mookies. You go, and you get two scoops of vanilla ice cream, then there are all these jars of cold and hot toppings to put on it that make it worth the trip across town to get there.”
“Now, think about how much I love you, and all the ways that I love you. That’s the two scoops of vanilla ice cream. To find a boy who’s right with you, start with that, and then figure out what you want on top. If the base (the ice cream) is solid, then it’ll all work out, but if you just pour the sprinkles and ground-up Butterfinger in a bowl without it, all you’ve got is a mess.”
I also tell her not to love like me, not to make the mistakes I made. She’s beautiful and brilliant, she’s also incredibly young, even though she thinks she’s ready for AARP. There will always be boys. Picking one is tricky, though.
Some boys haven’t been kind to her at all. They live in other area codes, which is good because if they lived in 601, they might get an education. They might still get an education if they don’t leave her alone. Love is hard. Love hurts. Everybody deserves love, though—even the boys who were mean to my precious child, just not when I’m around.
When I was in rehab, I spent a lot of time talking to a girl I once spent a lot of time trying to talk out of her dress. Recently divorced, she talked about how her psychologist said she was love-starved. I’m not a psychologist, but I knew that. I knew that for forty years. For some reason, she believed the psychologist and not me. Working with her to find a way not to feel love-starved is tricky, though. Once you learn to live with it, you find ways to sustain yourself without love for a very long time.
Sometimes people say, “Gee, Boyd, do you have plans of ever finding somebody who loves you back?” That’s a complicated question. I think they all did in a way, in their way, their own way, defined by them, not by Boyd. I think that’s how it should be. I don’t accept love well. That’s my fault. Not theirs.
Like I am to her mom, I’m committed to Little Bird until the fires on the sun go out and the moon crashes into the sea. Uncle Boyd won’t live forever, though. There needs to be a new model to replace me. I refuse to let her lead a life of quiet melancholy like I did. She’s too smart, too beautiful, and once she starts, people love talking to her.
My final advice to her was, “Find someone who loves you like I love …” The name in that sentence is a secret, but not to her.
