There it is. I’m home. Love. I remember my first crush. Well, my first exciting and thoroughly maddening crush. Freshman year of high school and I met her through Adam; two years older than me and I thought she was perfect. A small girl with slanted marbly eyes, like liquid pools of sunlight. An alto voice that rose shimmering during a talent contest and a body that held secrets I could only secretly dreamed about. When we held hands—it was thrilling and dangerous and non-contemplative. It was a love that made me mad because I wanted to know what to expect, what to do. I had no idea that those first pricks could be so fatal, so intoxicating that I would do anything for her. It was a stupid love, a love without fear, like driving too fast, reckless and unwitting. But I didn’t care. When the words came, I was devastated. I acted like foolish boys did and fumed and wrote her letters and quoted from Billy Joel and didn’t know how to deal with the hurt because I had never felt the hurt before. It was a stronger love in college; the culmination of high school crushes and disappointments, of boredom and thoughts of “how things ought to be”. She laughed infectiously and stared straight into my eyes unflinching. I used to brush her hair with my fingertips as we coyly dreamed of our futures and talked about the silly things that college kids expounded upon. We kept it secret because it was beautiful that way. I looked at the stars and got drunk when we hugged for the last time and went our separate ways. I got drunk again when I thought of our perfect arguments and her small hands and how she was the ultimate love of my life. It was a giddy love. Expected love. She loves me now and I’ve settled into the silent cocoon. We talk about our dreams but they seem more like dreams now. We hold hands and I think nothing of it. It’s a love strung together by tiny happenstances. A walk through the park with nothing on our minds, sitting through a movie that goes nowhere and yet we laugh because we don’t have to get anywhere—dinners where she orders for me because she already knows what I want. I wake up next to her and get dressed for work and she turns over and mumbles, “Have a good day” and I leave quietly lest she wakes up. As I get older and love matures, it becomes familiar. I’m not singed by it any more, I’m afraid, because the warmth is steady now. I’m less likely to jump into the abyss and more likely to wade in, left foot, then right, then let the familiar feelings soak in. I do miss the heady days of love abandoned, of those terrible feelings, ripping my insides apart, and can’t help but feel a bit sad to recognize the familiar face of love. Somewhere along the way, I’ve gone and become sensitized to it all. I’ve been hit with the disease for so long that I’m partly immune to the fever. It’s like a puzzlebox that’s infuriating to figure out, but once you’ve smashed it and put it back together, it’s not as fun to solve any longer. I think I must be a fool, and yet, love waits and doesn’t tire.