12.8.08

WANTED: butterflies and tears

Though it is generally said that living in the moment is the best and healthiest place to be, I am someone who is constantly striding into the future with planning ahead, whether it be a career path or a decision with Friday night’s outfit, as well as occasionally tripping into the past with nostalgic daydreams. Tonight’s trip has taken me to one of the most thrilling, exhilarating and ridiculously nerve-wracking times of my life:
First love.
The first flutter of a tiny butterfly rapidly morphed into a thousand rainbow coloured butterflies that resided in the pit of my gut for the best part of a year and a half, forever flitting from controllable flickers to full-blown gushing, rushing surges that made sitting still impossible. What a time. What a fucking passionate time. One minute we’d be screaming in each others scarlet faces underneath the stars giving the neighbours a sight for sore eyes with him in his baggy white boxers, the next we’d be making just as much noise stumbling, feeling and falling in the darkness. I fell. I fell right into the inferno.
As I come up for air from my red and blue memories, a distinct lack of butterflies and tears becomes very clear; where did all the excitement go? It seems to me that any matter of the heart that I’m aware of these days, whether encountered by me or my friends, seems to be so much more diluted; not a deafening, torso-shuddering symphony but a dull muted tingle coming from somewhere far in the distance.
As we stagger through the years, from one lusty encounter to the next, we seem to be wandering further and further away from the fire, and it sure is getting chilly. When we were younger and still hormone ridden, throwing caution to the wind was common practise. I know I rarely thought twice about jumping in with two feet. Things are different now. Screening, playing it cool and keeping your options open have taken over. Though not necessarily when it comes to what your grandparents like to refer to as ‘going all the way’. Bizarrely, somewhere along the rocky road, the one-night-stand has replaced the first date. And if you’re not ‘lucky’ enough for that messy, awkward encounter to turn into a topsy-turvy relationship then it’s back to the drawing board and inevitably, back to an over-crowded, over-noised club full of over-rated options. We are living in an era that could give the swinging of the sixties a run for its money but where the hell is all the free love?

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