Chances Are

A close friend of mine just ended a 5 year relationship and it's caused me to be a little introspective. I won't go into the details for you but suffice to say, things didn't really turn out the way she had hoped. I wish there was something I could do to make her pain go away but a small part of me is actually jealous. Yes, jealous. Now let me explain.

I'm jealous of knowing that she couldn't feel this kind of pain without having known the depths of love. People will debate the saying "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." You can ask 100 people and you'll get 100 different opinions. I've always believed the saying to be true.

When I was a little girl, my sister and I shared a bedroom. Our mother would come around when it was time to go to sleep and tell us to stop talking and get some rest. I would hide under my covers and tune my AM radio to CKLW, Windsor/Detroit. The call letters were sung in acappella voices that went up the scale. C-K-L-WWWWWW. I would listen to Johnny Mathis, Rosemary Clooney and Nat King Cole; all singing songs of love and happiness and I truly believed that somewhere out there, Canada probably, that those things were real. They were my beacons of hope in an otherwise hopeless existence.

As I got older, part of me still held on to those dreams and waited for that someone who thought I hung the moon. I was always willing to take a chance and would go into things so hopeful that this would be "the one". When it didn't work out, I would seek the comfort of a friend's shoulder and cry until my body was shuddering with grief. Oh, how I reveled in my pain!

I know now that relationships are more than sunshine, roses and sweet love songs and I suppose part of me still believes in true love. It's been over 3 years since I dated anyone on more than a casual level and I wonder sometimes if I'll let ever let myself be that vulnerable again. It's much less painful to sip a martini and listen to a song about love lost than it is to experience it firsthand.

I love my life and I don't feel like I need anyone to complete it but I have to admit that I miss the emotion, the passion, the ups, the downs. That feeling of being alive, squared.

Maybe someday I'll take a chance again..