Fixing balloons

Some people are lucky in love. My baby brother (he hates when I call him that) met his girlfriend when they were 12, started dating her a couple of years later and they are still together today. He is 25. She lived around the corner. I mean, who does that happen to?

I am different. I have been in love a few times and almost every time I thought it would last, but unfortunately it hasn't. I say unfortunately, but the reality is I might have just been lucky.

I have had my arse handed to me a few times in my life.

I had my arse handed to me once in high school by a girl with strawberry blonde hair. Then twice in University - once by a blonde girl from another land and another time by a girl with curly blonde hair. When I lived in PE, a girl with blonde hair who was way too young for me handed me my arse when I thought I was indestructible. Then finally, when I moved to Joburg, a girl called Bean with blonde hair handed me my arse. I loved one other girl but I fucked that up. She also has strawberry hair.

I'm sensing a trend :-)

Anyway that's not the point. The point is every single time one of those girls, all of whom I truly loved by the way, handed me my arse I was pretty much convinced that I would never love like that again.
 
The truth is I didn't. I loved differently every time.

The strawberry blonde girl was my first. The girl from another land was short and sharp. The curly blonde haired girl and I connected mentally. When I was with the girl who was too young for me, I wanted to take care of her. Finally, being with the Bean was passionate and angry and like being thrown into a deep end of a pool when you can't swim.

They were different but I loved them all - in my way.

A lot of people will look at that and say I fall in love too easily and that, because of this, it can't be true love. I don't care what those people think, because as much as each of those girls handed me my arse, they also handed me a priceless gift. They taught me forgiveness.

People are complicated, difficult beings to understand and, until recently, I didn't realise just how much.

One night when I was wallowing in the deepest pit of self-pity (don't judge, we have all been there.) I read something which blew my mind:

"Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift."

It's a poem by Mary Oliver called The Uses of Sorrow. Finding the meaning is something you will have to do yourself but I think I have discovered what it means for me in the last month. It has come as a relief.

I have digressed. Back to people being lucky in love: in a lot of ways I am jealous of my brother.

He has never known what it's like to lose someone you love. To watch them get in a car and drive away before they fly off to their island. To hear them say it's over and know they mean it by the look in their eyes. That's lucky.

I just can't shake the thought, however, that I have been lucky as well. In some weird way I am thankful that I have been through the things I have. I think we all should be thankful for having had the chance to love someone, no matter how fleeting it was or how painful the ending was.

I found this the other day. Please click the link and read it before you carry on reading this. It's short, I promise. Also, please note that he is wearing a bow tie.
http://www.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com/this-comic-about-love-will-touch-your-heart/

It's weird how sometimes this kind of thing will come across your path when you least expect it, or even when you most need it.

The analogy is almost perfect. If your heart is like a balloon, my brother's is unblemished, still gleaming as it floats next to his girlfriend's. Mine is scarred and covered in plasters, but you know what? It still floats.

At my age every woman I meet has a balloon that is either scarred as well, or locked up in a box where it can't be deflated again.

Most people would be scared to put themselves out there if their balloon was covered in plasters. I mean how much more of this kind of sh*t can it take?
The answer is different for everyone but my biggest failing (or success, depending on who you ask) is that I am a hopeless romantic.

I bought a girl roses every day of the week last week just because it wasn't Valentines Day. It's stupid and a bit ridiculous but I didn't care. It felt right and I would do it again in a heart beat. My balloon is beaten up, a little shabby and it's been broken a few times, but you know what? I fixed it and it still floats. That's all that counts really.

DISCLAIMER: It has dawned on me that perhaps, I should stop dating blonde girls.