The Flight of the Rocketman

I just want this to be good,
I just want this to be good.
- but you don't understand,
you don't understand me, and I want to be understood.
But if it doesn't brush my shoulder,
and it doesn't beat my heart,
that's not what I want - no, that's not where I will start.
I never kissed somebody so that they would break my heart,
that not what I want.
-- Wishing Heart, words and music by Lisa Loeb

My friend Alex asked me yesterday, "Which would you choose? The person you love or the person best suited for you?"

I take it that the person best suited for you, you don't love and the person you love might not necessarily be in love with you. If you are about to cross the tight rope, do you jump straight down to the safety net to avoid all the anxiety and the pain or do you ask them to remove the safety net and begin the deadly walk across? The comparison is almost the same.

My answer to that question is simple: I'm a performer. Let's give the crowd a good show.

Love is an important, very powerful word for me. It is something so completely undefined, it is something so abstract and makes people do so many weird, stupid and wonderful things that there is no one real way that you can properly describe the effects of love. And people feel it differently, react to it differently. Love is something very personal, something experienced individually.

And why will I give up a chance to go for it? A chance to have it for myself? Why will I settle for the safe choice? Where's the challenge there? And I'm not saying I'm up for it for the challenge, no, not all... I'm no gamesman. But I tend to not value the things that come too easily. I think that's a Des'ree song; but I digress... And I don't know if it is masochism or stupidity on my part but I've walked that tightrope many times and have fallen. I hurt myself many times, broke a few legs and probably died a couple of times. But that won't stop me from removing the safety net and putting up a good show. Because once you find reciprocation; once you get together with someone that you love and loves you back with the same intensity then you know everything is worth it. It is really worth it.

I'm not saying that going for the person who loves you and will understand you and take care of you the way you want to be taken cared of is a stupid choice. No, not at all. It's just not my choice. If I was to enter a relationship, I want the whole shebang: the fireworks, the orchestral music, the happy ending. I want the crying and the passionate kissing. I want the thrill of the unknown, that all you have is each other and you don't know how long that will last. I want the fire. I want to burn.

As I said, you have every right to call me a masochist, a stupid fool. But if I find that person; if I find reciprocation, you'll have to excuse me while I get my last laugh...

If we all leap before we crawl, we might fall,
and it's not always candy spun from head to heart,
and it's not always meant to be,
and it's not always up to me.
-- "Wishing Heart," words and music by Lisa Loeb

It's a gamble, it's a roll of the dice, it's the spinning of the roulette wheel, it's the slowly turning over cards... It's not a game, though. Do not make that mistake. That mistake is crucial. That mistake can mean game over for you. Never play. I'm trying to think of a good metaphor for what love is (or the search of love) but I can't find one right now. Words fail me at the moment...

It's an over-used hackneyed topic but it's really what all stories are about. It's really why we are still alive. And it is described in so many ways; in so many different ways. It is related to us in so many different stories. Practically all stories are about it. And yet, we can't really truly have one good definition of it. Eleven billion people in the world and one person will refute or object to any one given definition because his or her experience of it is different.

So why will I bother finding a metaphor for it? I could use any one word and it would be good enough...