If any word should be a 4-letter word...

I've never been really in love before... or at least not enough to cause the paperback renditions of falling in love--palpitations, insomnia, acne. Err... of course I had the last one, but I seriously doubt if love's the etiology (My apologies for the terms, I am a medical professional. Just go ahead and pick up a dictionary, or email me). It's the marker, though not really on a conscious level, that I've been waiting for. Come college I thought it's never going to happen.

Then it did.

I suppose I made it happen. I guess in my experience, love is a choice, or at least the feeling is--well just a matter of choice. Not that you can do anything about it once it begins, you're bound to be trapped in the freewheeling, earth-shaking, mind-numbing ride of it... love.

Not that I've ever felt anything close to what I've just described. Nonetheless I was hooked. Trapped until the ride ends way up onto cloud nine or to the mind-shattering crash back to reality. Mine ended with the latter. Hurt wthout breaking any bone. And the classic textbook reaction--my defense mechanism kicked in. I rationalized.

"Oh, rejection is a welcome thing. At least I now know how it's like to feel crushed. And I'd rise above this. Now that I've learned the sensation of hurt, I'd appreciate love more."

Maybe. But not yet... not just yet.

It has been years since then. And I have felt the same mixture of feelings a number of times, nothing that panned out. But I move on--I brush it aside, and hop on to the next great adventure. Man, the suspense is killing me.

By now, I've been so used to nothing working out that it's the first thing I anticipate, not that it prevents me from pushing on. Of course it's not uncommon that I end up in doubt, or, more frequently, running away.

Then quite recently there's someone I met in this criss-crossing roads of life, though I never really thought anything at first--except that she's someone you just can't help but like. I must've fallen for her, or close enough to something like that. And I did feel good while I had the chance to be around her. Despite the signs I count, there's always an opposite one I see. Somehow I never believe it would work out. Not that it would have ever detered me from showing that I care.

That's about as far as I went though. Was I afraid to go further? Perhaps. Likely afraid to realize the truth. Well, that's that.

Have I ever really fallen in love? I don't know. It's the elusive 4-letter word that I would journey on in life for.

I'm still hopeful though. We should all be. Hope, I believe, is the John the Baptist of Love. Something's bound to come after him.

Well if you've gone this far, go ahead say something about this.

P.S. Oh, but please don't anyone give me that crap about love from family or friends. You know very well that it's not what I'm talking about here.