When I was a little girl...I would find something interesting...it could be anything...and I would become...instantly...obsessed with the topic...There was the dinosaur period...where I dragged around a dinosaur bone for a week...dug holes all over the yard in search of an archaeological find...and memorized the names of all the reptiles living in the Jurassic period...
There was the day I discovered that I had Native American blood running through my veins...and began memorizing tribal sign language...which I promptly listed as the second language spoken in my home...which led to the principal's office...Then there was my obsessive reading of a new author I had discovered...and the need to read their books in order of their printing...Rudyard Kipling...Laura Ingalls Wilder...Stephen King...once I made a discovery...I was addicted...I can honestly say...that most of those addictions fell to the wayside...I never became dependent on Vicodin...or speed...never tried illegal drugs...but...there are two things that have always had a hold on me...fairy tales...and one man...
You wouldn't think that stories and a living person have anything in common...but they do...The stories all have a female...male relationship...the rise and fall of action...there are always beasts...or demons...or great trials and tribulations that have to be overcome...and in true...un-sugarfied fashion...the stories most often end with the separation of siblings...partners...lovers...the tale expertly woven...entangles the unsuspecting reader...snaring them into returning again and again...just like an addictive substance hooks the user...causing them to return to use...again and again...hoping for that original high...
When I was 16...I met a boy...who changed me forever...I looked in his eyes...and I learned what being in love meant...What he made me feel...helped me recognize the man I did marry...granted the marriage ended...his choice... I could see love...when it stood in front of me...and I knew when it was gone...but...and there is always a but...I never stopped loving that first young man I fell in love with at 16...he is and always be my delicious drug...desire for him raced through my veins then...and it does now...what sweet sweet pleasure...and pain...
He's a man now...I'm a grown woman...and after 30 years...when I hear from him...open an email from him...see his picture...my heart skips a beat...adrenal rushes through my system...my eyes dilate...and I am back...over and over...just to experience that first high...I can't get enough of our tale...this boy and girl...who locked eyes and fell in love...only to be separated by the beast of burdens...inner demons that torment...and the trials of life...and in an un-sugarfied fashion...we are not together...and probably never will be...
I have tried...over and over...to change the plot...the story-line...The conflict has always been the same...and there is no resolution...at least not one I can see...yet I am obsessed...addicted...to him...to us...to what I wish things could be...As the hands on the clock of time spin...I have to wonder...is this clearly illogical desire...actually making me sick...and if it is...truly bad for me...is there a rehab...something or someone I can turn to edit out this part of my life...so that I can move on with my own story...because I feel as trapped in my fairy tale...as characters must feel in the pages of a book...Is there medicine I can take...or a clinic I can check into...or someone else's fable that I can focus on...because deep down...I know...I need to escape...
the heroin in my story...
