chasing the dragon

My heart shut down this weekend, my body went limp.

I had some sort of emotional hangover, which took me over and left me over exhausted and unmotivated.

What happened?

Sensory overload.

I dealt with a mix of emotions, memories and an influx of experiences that left me fried.

But the one I didn't count on was the memory I dealt with today…

Today marks the two-year anniversary of meeting "him". It dawned on me sometime this afternoon, when I realized…it was exactly two years ago this weekend that our worlds collided.

To say that I was a little blown away is an understatement. Could it really be two years now since my life was altered…my heart blown open, and my Addiction to Love born.

My four-month affair came on quick and fast, love at first site, every day a perfect miracle. Oh, I was in love, but with what? I was in love with a concept. I was in love with the idea of being in love. In reality, I'm not sure I really knew this person at all.

For this magical period of time, I felt something I had never experienced before, a high so high…that when he abruptly left me, I suffered from a wicked withdrawal and heartbreak so intense, I never believed I would recover.

It's like Chasing the Dragon, you smoke up the delicious opiate…but do you actually catch anything? You're drawing in the smoke…with the hopes to achieve this immense high…but it's fleeting…it doesn't last. You catch nothing, just a craving for more, and a higher high. And in the end…you never actually catch a dragon, just a painful feeling of coming down and withdrawal.

Ahhh…how quickly it came on…we had the most amazing chemistry right from the start. We were saying "I Love You" in just a few days. The Sex was Perfectly Perfect. Our mind's melded and he gave me everything I wanted, without having to ask…I was just getting the Love High strong, hard and fast. Without using a lick of rational thought, I let him move into my life right away and incorporated him into my world instantly.

The rush, the high, it was so exhilarating. In hindsight I can see it for what it was. A mirage. This affair was not based in reality. In the real reality, I didn't know him at all.

Like the first rush I felt the first time I snorted a line… this brief encounter brought me a rush that made me feel a host of intensely heightened sensations…just like that fabulous feeling one gets from the first time they try a new drug. The first time I tried this brand of Fast Hard Love, it distinctly left an indelible impression and I was hooked.

For a short moment, a few months, I was lost in a magical feeling that I feared to question, because I knew deep down, it couldn't be real.

And…then, it was done. He left. No explanation, no break up. He just disappeared.

No source of replenishment…I had a bad love sickness…a pain so cutting, it destroyed me, the withdrawal so unbearable…I didn't think I could live or breath through another day.

My heart was ripped in half, the pain so excruciating, I'm still not sure if I've ever really healed.

And thus I became… a Love Junkie.

I was left, abandoned, with no answers and when I got them later, they didn't really fix anything or make anything better. All I wanted was to recapture it again, and so I danced, from boy to boy, hoping meaningless sex, dating without emotion, faking a feeling of romantic interest might cure me of my horrific disease.

Deep down I'd question if I'd ever re-find that feeling again. But it never came. It won't… it isn't based in a reality I live in. It was meant for that time of my life only, and won't reappear. I don't think I can handle it again. The rehabilitation process was just so difficult.

I'd pray and pray to feel that way just one more time….lost in the pain of lusting for a high that only existed in this one space and time. I looked backwards and forwards in time and space…but this maniacal adventure was to happen to me only once. Never to be recaptured again.

I've been in love before. I know how it feels. Each time, each person, brings a new twist to the emotion. Each relationship that has marked the timeline of my life, is connected to something else, something toxic. Each man in my life paralleled my habits, whether they were coke, booze, ecstasy, booze….they partied like I did, and thus we were a match.

This person and I shared a kismet bond, we had both left our abusive spouses, and loved weed, sex and driving fast literally and metaphorically…it was fate. We nurtured each other post-marriage in that quintessential rebound way I've read countless articles about. Oh yes, post break up, I finally listened to my friends and family and understood that I was in some sort of rebound haze, and that it couldn't last.

So today, I acknowledge…that I am guilty of lusting for Love. For craving the chaos and drama, for being an obsessive freak, for perpetuating an idea that this could be something I want. It's not good for me.

By wanting to Love in this way again, I recognize that I'm merely Chasing the Dragon, sucking up smoke, not getting as high as I did that first time….and knowing it will never get me that high again. I must face this demon, as I face the other elements of my recovery. It is time for me to step back, and acknowledge that I am a Junkie, and Addict, someone who craves to do things that feel good whether they are good for me or not.

My heart remains a damaged organ. My rational thought realizes it is what it is. I have so much heartbreak to acknowledge and repair…if I'm ever to step into a relationship again, I must see the addiction I have for Love. I am a Love Junkie.