Most of my wondering was done aloud to friends and acquaintances; people in love, people out of love, people burned by love, and people like me who had never been in love.
The consensus was that all of these people wholeheartedly believed in love.
And I agreed with them, and still do (even out of love and a bit more cynical).
That summer, I fell in love for the first time.
The following spring, I fell out of love.
Seven years later now, much out of love, I have a new questioning itch that no interviews of friends or application of calamine lotion seems to cure. This time – knowing full well that love exists in some chasm – I cannot seem to remember the how of how to fall in love.
To clarify, I don’t remember how to let myself become intimate with someone, to let someone become intimate with me, to trust myself enough to suspend judgment and allow myself to fall in love.
Then last week, an acquaintance of mine announced that he is planning to have a summer fling in the summer of ‘06. I had forgotten about the concept of summer lovin’ all together. And while I think he meant for this to be an off-handed, whimsical quip back to the days of the T-birds and Pink Ladies, I couldn’t let him off that easy.
So I started my time-old proven theory of interviewing for answers in the name of love.
Question: How does one have a summer romance past the days when a summer does not have a definitive start or end date?
In an adult world where summers are no longer confined to June to September like they were in school-age years, I am not sure that it is possible to limit a love affair to a season. Plus, it seems fatalistic to suppose that once Labor Day arrives, the relationship is kaput. If that is the case, what really is the reason for the romance in the first place? The attitude, the mentality, the casual and carefree nature of summertime is the draw for most people. (Plus, there is all that exposed bronzed skin.) And while the love (be in infatuation, puppy love, sex haze love, or genuine love) might not make it through the tepid weather of fall, or the freezing weather of winter, it seems difficult to plan to have a summertime fling.
Question: How does one genuinely fall in love when all she/he has time to do / can afford to do / has a desire for or the sleep pattern to endure is weekend dating?
In this depressing adult world, dating during the week has left me too hung-over, too drained to do much more than weekend dating. Personally, even though some chamber of my heart aches for new love – hell, any love at all – the how of falling in love was much easier for me when summer days could drift away on a lake with a book, with a guitar, and with a young man.
I believe in carpe diem, loving every moment of living, and wanting as much from the now as possible, which makes it difficult to reconcile the thought of waiting to be in a less casual, more long-term relationship until I am better settled in my career. Somewhere deep inside of me, there is a terrible romantic obsessed with the idea of being swept off of my feet, of being crooned to, of being someone’s muse – and she might have to forgo an occasional meeting to fall in love.
When I look back at the peaks and valleys of my love life, like rabbits, I seem to get horny right about March and madly start hunting down Mr Right. Some summers, in my dating history, I’ve found him. I’ve held onto him throughout fall, winter and spring, but always when summer starts to round the corner again, he seems to get the summertime itch. None of my relationships have survived this itch.
Maybe, then, I am just a fall-winter-spring kind of love. Maybe I am more of a jackets-blankets-soup-holidays kind of love. Maybe I need to shed my down for a bikini and figure out just what my favorite season has to offer.
Something tells me that this is the summer I’ll figure out the answers to all of these questions. With hope and optimism.
• "A Single Serving" appears the 1st and 15th of every month, exclusively in Lumino Magazine. E-mail Melissa at m.koss@yahoo.com.
