Oh man, good timing on this one. My life changed today.
Some backstory. In my late teens and early twenties, I only fell in love hard. Several times. I'd meet a girl, actually hit it off day on day one, then subsequently flip the fuck out to Shakespearean degrees. My favorite method for saying I fancy you was to create some god awful piece of artwork and bring it to target of my affection, in person, unannounced. I terrified many young ladies. I spent most of my life alone.
Eleven years ago was the last time I fell in love. I promptly executed that emotion. The girl in question was an internet acquaintance on the other side of the country. My growing self-awareness regarding my overbearing proclamations of adoration mixed with my logical apprehension regarding the improbable logistics of my current crush to form a murderous animosity towards the stomach flutters. I utterly refused to let myself fall in love. Somehow, I succeeded.
It turns out, willfully suppressing my sense of infatuation was a pretty permanent matter.
Two years later, by preposterous unrelated circumstances, I met that girl in person. I liked her well enough but there was no love. That emotion was dead.
It's been a long while, now. Dating doesn't really happen for me. I've made plenty of excuses, but the TL;DR: is that I just don't feel it.
Don't get me wrong, my life is awesome. I've got wonderful friends. I've got a great career. My artwork has gotten a lot better. I do get lonely with the no-dating thing but those friends I mentioned always get me back on my feet when I emotionally crash. Life is really good.
Right now I'm job hunting. Last week I got an interview with my dream job. It went pretty well. I'm a little nervous and they had two more people to interview after me. A friend recommended I send them a "thank you for the interview" card, you know, just to get every edge I can.
I'm like "Oh man, have you met me? I'm gonna hand paint them a thank you card!"
So I did. Bottom left is the final one. I wrote a very short note on the back and drove to their office to hand-deliver it. With the deed done, I drove home without too much of a thought. That's when it hit me.
Joy.
Love.
It was faint. It was tiny. But it was real. I felt something I thought was dead.
Not only can still feel love, but that old teenage practice of making little pieces of art to give people I care about is deeply, inseparably bound to my capacity to love. It's not just that I can feel love again, I can summon it. I can call on it when I need it, or when the time is right. I can feel love whenever I want to!
I know you were expecting this story to end with some girl I met today. That part of my story hasn't happened yet. What did happen today was for the first time in over a decade, I actually believe in love. I believe it can happen.
