It’s different so I should probably write some of it down.

I have fallen in love 4 of the 6 times I can in a lifetime. This is the fourth and I think I have finally learned my first two lessons in love.

Love has no room change.

He’s not perfect, in fact, the first 6 months of our relationship I was a glorified booty call, and I only use the word glorified to make myself feel like we knew each other at all. I didn’t have his phone number, he never managed to make me feel beautiful, or smart, or much of anything really other than tears every month the few days before my period came. To me, he was perfect, he was making me feel, something again. I was ok with telling everyone around me how I was in love and he was amazing and that he didn’t even like me. We had sex every other day. For six months. Once he went away to Montreal, got drunk and texted me a couple nice things. I was more sure it was worth it than ever before. I didn’t care that he’d get tired of me after a few more months. That’s what boys did to me now, my cross to bear because that’s what I did to their brethren for so long.

I never thought he liked me, ever. I’m still only 90% sure, about 10% of the time. I was physically accessible, being conveniently located in my bed each night a few blocks down from his house. I smoked weed with him every time I saw him, cutting his recreation budget in half. I didn’t mind that the visits were always quick. “I’m busy too.” I’d say, “You can only come by for a quick visit.”. Mean while, I’m sitting there terrified that he will see the thick clouds of “sleepover” dreams that surround my torso. I carried those dreams around with me until one day, he slept over. In the morning, he goes home to get some Shreddies. This is a theme that continues for our sleepovers, always, until now, this is a thing that happens, Every, Time.

Let’s pop back to sex for a second here. I’ve happily given this man more sex than any other man ever in a single year. At least every other day. Twice in a row only once. He couldn’t get it up only once. I couldn’t come only Every. Time. It’s because for no reason at all, I think he’s better than me. It’s because of that picture of a strange girl with an eyebrow ring resting on my pillows as my boyfriend’s dick goes in her. It’s because shorty Jones made me feel like shit about my sex face. It’s because of that one text Marcus sent me ripping up my entire body. That one text that I read and re read and that I puked and re puked until I was a disgusting pin of saggy ass skin and hollow wet cheeks.

Before him, I tried to heal by having sex and getting drunk and being free. I had never really been free. I drank all the alcohol, all of it, always. I went dancing alone, literally, to my iPod in the middle of downtown. I asked bars full of men to rate me out of 10 (I’m a 7). I tell the same stories of this time over and over because I remember none of it. It’s a patchwork of days recalled because someone scolded me or because I cried, intense emotion links memory. This patchwork of months, not one square is there because of joy. People thought I was weird, I told them I was going crazy. I told my parents and my best friends in serious confidence that I thought I was going crazy, all the while, every other day, I’m not saying much, fucking him, projecting the parts of myself that I remember on to my bedsheets for him to get to know. A crazy person showing off a paint by number personality in an attempt to bring back her real one. I feel better after a while, I don’t want to have sex with anyone but him. I realize I would have never had sex with him if I hadn’t been in such a dark place, well, I would have made him work for it more, something he wouldn’t have done, and we would have never been. It’s my meet cute, me being all kinds of fucked up. So, here I am, in love with him. My next move? I make out with my first black guy, I fuck the young one who holds a special place in my heart, and I cuddle with my best friend’s hyper sexualized roommate. All this in three days, then I pick him. I ask him if I am his girlfriend, he looks at me with soft eyes. I missed soft eyes so much I had made myself forget about them. I have sex with no one but him for our second 6 months, our real first 6 months. Turns out, I doubled my sex partner number in 1 year from 10 to 20. “I’m cool with it.”, “I love him.”, “I’m happy.”, I say. He likes me too now. I’m on cloud 9, in the land of sleep over dreams and flowers on a Tuesday. I’m still not sure who knows me though, and I still can’t come.