Love Hurts...

It starts with a butterfly feeling. A nice anticipation in your stomach...almost like the feeling as you wait in line for a thrill ride...that nervous excitement you get. It continues by filling your head and causing your thoughts to focus on that one person. It shows itself in the attention you start paying to your appearance, actions and behaviour. It eventually grows until you need to act upon it...and then it becomes physical or at least we want it to as the animal instinct kicks in until finally it encompasses us and takes us over.

But is this love I talking about?

No. What I have described is lust and it's a whole different ball game from love but all too easily mistaken for it.

Lust has a funny way of fooling us into thinking we are in love or at least feeling love and that can have some consequence.

Now I don't want to knock lust or underplay it's effect...christ I love the feeling of lust! I've let it lead me into temptation more than once let me tell you and I'm sure the dents in my halo from where I tossed it aside in moments of lust will testify to that, not to mention the carpet burns!

Lust once encouraged me all the way to quick, thrilling sex with a male friend in a kitchen just feet away from where his girlfriend (and my good friend) lay sleeping on the sofa! I can't even say it dragged me kicking and screaming because that would be a lie...instead it grabbed me and consumed me for several months, weeks and days (as it was doing to him also). It increased it's hold on me by giving me little moments of encouragement...a smile, eyes catching each other across rooms, little touches as we past each other...all heightening the feeling and all increasing the levels of lust until it boiled over into an illicit encounter on a kitchen worktop! Ok, I'm being honest here so it was two illicit encounters in two different rooms, on two different occasions but whatever, I digress...

Am I ashamed of myself? Of course. I cheated on someone and did something that potentially would have destroyed a friendship and hurt someone I cared about badly. Do I regret it? Hell no. It was bloody good and it's a little secret that never got out in our circle of friends and is now buried in the past where it will remain. It was a moment of lustful madness. It meant nothing but at the time it meant everything...enough to risk being caught, enough to risk a friendship, enough to risk ruining relationships.

What it was not though was love.

Love is something altogether different. Love can start with lust or it can walk hand in hand with lust but as an emotion in it's own right? Love is, as my Other Half described it "just bigger, just different" and that's about right. Being in love just gets you somewhere right in the chest and holds you. It makes your heart jump and hurt all in a matter of minutes. It's not a feeling in your stomach like butterflies, it's like a bloody kick in the guts, a blow to knock you sideways. It gives you superpowers. The ability to read minds being one because love makes you finish someone elses sentences and know what they are thinking or feeling without the need to ask. It gives you the ability to communicate without speech. Makes your priorities change and comes with the ability to make you cry through sheer happiness or hurt at any given time. It makes you appreciate the sound of a heartbeat all the more and to thank someone that the chest next to yours in the bed is still rising and falling with breath.

Lust may take your knickers away but love can literally take your breath away.

Like I say it's easy to mistake lust for love but if you feel crap and it passes without leaving your heart aching and sore it was lust...lust rarely leaves your heart aching and sore for long, your ass cheeks from sitting on a kitchen worktop yes but your heart no!

So to the person with whom this post was written in mind....I guess what I'm saying is that in a week or two you'll feel better and you'll realise it was not love...not that love, not the love you were looking for or needed. If though in a week or two your ass cheeks hurt then we really need to have a totally different conversation!

Jenny xx