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Love addiction.

It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?

I wanted to be a monk when I was a child, but I am a “girl”, so I’d be a nun. Learning more as an adult about some of the practices and realities of being a younger monk, it seems like I dodged a bullet.

I’m riding a high from an obsession to the idea of a person, the way they make me feel, the way we interact. People call it love, but it’s not normal. It’s too strong and overwhelming. It’s not like how it is for the people I know now with normal lives. The people that took it slow and built the plane on the ground, rather than trying to figure out how to put the pieces together while hurtling back to Earth.

Mood swings, sleep disruption. Agitation. Loss of appetite. Despondence.

I understand the desperate love songs, I always have. It’s just odd to see how flat it is, if I step outside of the experience of the vortex, it’s 2D, there’s no substance, it’s just the same cycle with a different catalyst. It always is for me. What is “real” love? How do people develop a genuine connection slowly? I get smashed in the head with a bat whenever I meet the next “one” of the moment. Can people make these sorts of waves in a long-term committed relationship? (Probably not.) Are they healthy? (No.) Are they fun? (Yes, but also, not exactly?)

There are people that realize this and ride the waves with each new person anyway. Go through the motions. Are they happy? What do they get out of trying the new flavor every time one drops? It flattens all of the good things in my life, I can’t eat or sleep.

My uncle lived his life that way. I mean he never settled down or in. Always had a date, but never a long-term partner. He is a monk in a way, a nomad. He never quite dug in anywhere, but he did a lot, met a lot of people, saw a lot of things, became an important person in his field all because he wasn’t tethered. Is he lonely? Does he regret not building his own family (blood or otherwise)? Or did he find something internally?

I know if I want peace, I have to “put the bottle down”. I know I need to seek a middle path, something akin to striving for an ascetic life. But am I really living my life if I am not out getting hurt and trying anyway, even though I know it’s a hopeless, endless pursuit to seek the high of a new “love”? We acclimate. The new lover isn’t new anymore. The dopamine hit shrinks each time. I am monogamy oriented. Or that is a belief I have about myself. I can’t reconcile these things unless I let go of the idea of being able to get that high from a stable relationship.

Trauma brain says become involved with a man who is 16 years older than me. Other side of trauma brain says, be single forever. Rational brain says, chill out and find yourself instead.

He writes beautiful music. (Remember to separate the art from the artist?) He never refers to me with my personal name despite everyone else doing so.

Impulsivity. Clouded judgment.

I don’t know. I think it’s interesting with age and experience, I am able to start connecting these things and pick out patterns in my behavior that previously seemed mysterious or coincidental. Turning away from the allure of rapture out of a recognition that something about the experience is “false” is a strange thing. Life itself is fleeting. I was built and shaped by my environment to seek novelty and rushes. I dodged the drugs and alcohol bullets, but the dopamine rush of a new lover still feels like the ultimate substance. Recognizing it for what it is feels like I’ve pulled back the veil in a sense, and I can’t go back to behaving the same way. Knowing better is boring, disappointing, another adult reality to take in, examine like a simplistic puzzle toy that used to confound and entrance the younger self for hours.

After watching Khadija Mbowe’s most recent video about celibacy and placing it in the context of the several rounds of “sexual revolutions” that have occurred in the US since the 70’s, I feel called to think and act more clearly and with more intention around how I conceptualize potential partners of any sort. I think I come from a long line of likely neurodiverse dopamine chasers. Pilots, researchers, generals, artists, alcoholics, womanizers, organized criminals. Does everyone have this in their ancestral wake? It often feels like I am working against my internal pushes, the ghosts of the people in my body, the echoes of their experiences/desires/demons/obsessions/addictions, more than other people. Choosing the middle path feels so bland, even though it is where I’ve been most content. Is this true maturity? Not the false protective one, the adultification effect, but a genuine arrival at an important stop along the way?

Love isn’t limerence, obsession, the dopamine rollercoaster. It is deep and mutual respect, recognition, valuation, care. If I’ve finally learned this lesson through trial and error (not saying I have, or that I’ve accepted it is where I should go), what does it mean?

I guess something of value I take each time from being “lovestruck” is that it bring out the fun-loving side of me that is more willing to take risks. As long as it is reasonable risks, I don’t mind. It’s made me feel more open about asking people to do things like go on hikes or to the beach. Or art shows. I’ve been listening to music much more, too. I think I have a tendency to get emotionally constipated, and love addiction is like an aggressive dose of emotional diuretic. I can’t remember the last time I journaled so much while my life wasn’t a hot pile of garbage.

Other than all that, I’ve been doing really well. I love my job and the people at it. I’ve been going to their happy hours, and being more and more of myself around them. They’re all trying to find people for me to date now, even though I think I should chill with all that until I’ve put a few more things back on the shelf properly in my head.

We’ve gone rollerskating together, and they’re taking me kayaking today. I’ve only ever canoed. One of my high school boyfriends used to take me. He was sweet and mischievous. We “fell in love” in China while I was still with another boy back home. We waited for awhile after I broke up with the person I was with before actually dating. We were really active together. We went for walks, went to the movies, went to concerts, played ping pong, lit things on fire, took the bus just to get out, went to school sports functions. I look back on that time in my life fondly and cherish it. I saw him recently with his wife at a store. They seemed happy together, and it made my heart full.

I’ve been going to the farmers market like it’s my job. I’ve fermented so many things. I’ve made a freezer full of jarred pasta sauces that I can pull out in the middle of winter when the produce is all dead and I want easy food. I started making cheong. I made a peach one, and put the spent peaches in a jar with a bottle of everclear. That’ll make some lovely peach extract for baked goods. But also a fun liqueur to bring to the next office party.

I don’t recognize this person moving through social situations with (relative to the past) ease now. It’s me, but I’m just doing it, I’m not vigilantly monitoring everything as I do it, or say it. It’s flowing out of me like a stream, I’m just letting it happen, watching. I’m just being.

I want to post this before heading out for the day, so I haven’t edited it for clarity or redundancy. I guess it’s more of a journal entry. More regular food stuff soon since I’ve been going ham with those farmers market fruits and veggies.

At any rate, I’m generally content and poised to keep digging deeper and deeper into myself and what I am finding life is about for me. With everything going on all the time, I hope you’re doing well. See you again sometime soon.