Sometimes you feel like you're healed and fine, and you're amazed at how fast it happened? Didn't you just feel like killing yourself just yesterday? Weren't you pining after that lost love just a few minutes ago? It can't have been that long since you were living in a different house, plotting ways to get her back, completely in denial of the person she'd become. But there it is, you're feeling fine now. It doesn't matter how much that pain feels like just yesterday. Something's happened, and you're magically healed, as if some romantic messiah descended from the clouds to close the wounds in your heart. Suddenly you're whole again, blessed be the romantic saints.

And then something happens, and you realize that you're not OK. You're not healed, and you won't be for a long time. The metaphor of the saints rings so true: its all in your head. None of their religious magic exists, and neither does your miraculous emotional healing. You were just hiding it behind the lamp post and pretending it wasn't there anymore. And you almost had yourself fooled, didn't you? You really believed for a moment that you were good as new.

Until somebody brought up the idea of some couple or another being together forever. And suddenly the taste of venom is on your tongue. Your lips curl into a sneer. You turn your nose up at the thought of 'forever'. You had that once, and it didn't work out for you. So how could it work out for anyone else? You had so much faith in that lover. You *knew* them, like nobody else did. You knew them better than they knew themselves, and even they told it to you on one of the many nights they laid beside you in bed whilst curled up next to you in a loving embrace. And then, one day, it turns out that not only were the two of you wrong, but you were horribly wrong. You didn't know them at all. It was all a clever disguise, a fantastically executed prestidigitation. The smoke clears and the mirrors shatter, and whereas you were holding your lover a moment before, now your embrace is pushing shards of that broken mirror into your chest. You're left in a bloody mess, without warning, because it turns out that you didn't know them better than they know themselves. You weren't forever.

And neither is anybody else. Romance is fine, love is amazing.... but forever? That's impossible. Its only a matter of time until the disgusting human nature of one partner gets the better of the other and one (or both) of them are left sobbing in their bedroom alone, writing angsty teenage poetry (regardless of age) and wondering how this could have happened, because they were in love and so perfect together. This is the danger of the word forever.

I remember believing in forever. I remember believing in a romantic future.

Now, I just live day to day. I'm having dinner with a gorgeous woman not long after I move to Kelowna. And that is all that I can see. Who knows if there'll be a second dinner? Or a third? Maybe some walks in the park, some nights laying in my bed watching the new season of Dexter? Maybe not though. I really don't care. If her and I become an item, something real and committed, I don't think I'll be able to take it seriously as a long-term prospect for a while. And maybe that's for the best.... taking it slow never hurt anybody.

I expect to be waking up next to some beautiful person often enough in the near future. Its simply in my nature to seek companionship. And I will love going to bed with them, holding them close. I will love waking up next to them, and savoring those minutes before one of us gets up to fulfill some commitment. But I don't think I'll be catching myself looking forward to the 'next time' I'll get to lay in bed with them, or do this or do that with them. Because I'll always have doubts about that next time's existence. The moment I start to rely on them for something, actually count on their commitment to me... that's the moment I get nervous and probably begin to erode the relationship at its edges.

Sure, I look fine on the outside. My heart looks nice and new and polished..... you'd never knew Kat hit a home run with it, bashing it with a single, clean (and unexpected), swing of her bat into a food processor a few blocks away. I've managed to track it down, collect all the bloodied pieces, and sew them back together. You can't even see the stitches! Its gorgeous, you can see your own reflection if you take a close look. But open the door and look inside.... what a mess.

Romance is still a work in progress for me it seems. Apathy may yet be the death of it.