I’ve always been a sucker for love.
(Oh, I should mention–this one’s for you, Shaun.)
A hopeless romantic. A hapless sap, whatever you want to call it, that’s me. My parents tell me it’s because I was born on Valentine’s Day. While this may be a valid argument, I’ve always considered my birthday cruelly ironic: until six and a half months ago, I was pretty unlucky in love. Now, I’d like to say my lack of action in the lurrrrve department had everything to do with the intellectual inadequacy of the hormone-crazed high school boys that made up the pool from which I had to fish, so to say.
But probably, I was just a bad fisherwoman.
Most definitely, in the ways of dating, I was a bit of a catch-and-release type of girl. Nothing ever stayed hooked.
And, okay, I was picky.
REALLY picky.
Picky to the point that at the beginning of my senior year, people started catching onto my pickiness. A few of my male friends, determined to discover just who, and what, framed my perfect man, decided that I would settle for nothing less than a “guitar-playing Jesus.”
They thought this was hilarious.
I, on the other hand, realized, with not a little bit of horror, that they were absolutely correct.
But, that didn’t stop me from refusing to pursue any likely bachelors, or discouraging anyone who dared come close, just because they didn’t seem good enough. That’s why I spent nearly all of my four years of high school in a self-induced lonely stupor, whining about my lack of love and deserving every single minute of depressing desperation that came as a result.
And then, six months ago arrived.
That’s when I realized the man I thought I wanted wasn’t at all who I needed. (How’s that for The Cliche of the Day?)
I didn’t need a boy who could pluck from his guitar soulful songs full of sweet nothings he wrote just for me.
I didn’t need a boy who could quote scriptures that even I couldn’t remember.
I didn’t need a boy who wrote me poems, who read thick novels, who volunteered to help the Starving Children of Africa.
At one time, I wanted all of that. All. And even if I’d gotten it, I probably STILL wouldn’t have been satisfied. I’d go fishing for more.
But thankfully, I learned one night last September that the guy I need most isn’t the smartest I’ve ever met. He doesn’t even play guitar. Instead of Scripture, he likes to crack “That’s what she said,” jokes.
But also, he’s honest. Encouraging. Determined. Creative.
He inspires me without meaning to. He surprises me with his thoughts. He believes all the crazy reaching dreams I have will be my life someday. He loves me–ME, with all my crazy neurotic tendencies and strange needs.
It’s crazy, kids.
It’s love.
