I Don’t Want to Fall In Love
By Thoughtis
I don’t want to fall in love. I have fallen in love before. I have bruised my body, my ego, and that organ between my ribs. The limitations of luck, gravity, and the inevitable ground have betrayed me every time.
I don’t want to fall in love. How can you enjoy the beginnings of things if you’re flying through them so rapidly? Moving so quickly puts everyone at risk for injury. Falling in love can scar.
I don’t want to fall in love. I’m not looking for the relationship equivalent of a roller coaster ride. Do you know the best thing about a roller coaster? No one can force you to get on it. When people say, “Do one thing every day that scares you,” they aren’t talking about another human being.
I don’t want to fall in love. Real life is not a Taylor Swift song. My skeletal system is composed of bones, not musical notes. I don’t want the experience of loving someone to be ANYTHING like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street. That sounds terrifying and Maserati’s get terrible gas mileage.
I don’t want to fall in love. Falling implies not knowing where you’ll land. There is also a danger that I might accidentally take someone else down with me. I know I can’t be completely in control, but I don’t have to be completely out of it either.
I don’t want to fall in love. Maybe that means my life would make a terrible movie, but not everything has to be a goddamn movie. The running time of a movie is ninety minutes for a reason. It isn’t real. I don’t want to have to suspend my disbelief. I want belief to rain down until the inevitable ground is covered with water. Then I want to wade in.
I don’t want to fall in love. Falling into things hurts. I want to wade into love. I want the narcotic wave of trust and the tantalizing confidence of time pulling me deeper into the immersion.
I want to feel every degree of change in my body temperature as the high-water mark rises on my skin. I want to note the difference between knee-deep and thigh-deep. I want to remember every little thing about every little thing — and I can’t do that if I’m falling.
I don’t want to fall in love. I want to wade into it. I want the discomfort to gradually wash away until this pool is my home. I hope you’ll meet me in the deep end.