Lolo's Love Life: Moments in Love

Photography by : Eliza Stinson

WANNA GO BACK

Moments in Love

There are moments, so many moments I want to say “fuck it” to love. I tell myself

I will never let myself get close to a man again. Too much drama. Too much disappointment.

Too much heartache. Too much of me giving, and not getting. But, then I let my mind

wander…..back to those moments in love, and I wanna go back.

I wanna go back to last year to that night when you were sober, lying on the floor
watching that Bobby Brown BET movie. I am on the couch, a few feet away from you.
The lights are off. The TV is on blast, but my heart is pounding louder. I know how you
feel about me now, and it’s not platonic. I wanna go back to that moment…

“Can I lay next to you?” I whisper.

“I’ve been waiting to be next to you all night,” you say. I ease off the couch,
and place myself under your arm. I lay my head on your chest, and I can hear your
heart beating as fast as mine. I close my eyes and for this moment I feel love.

I wanna go back to 2013, the night when my anxiety was showing up in so many ways.
We got in a fight. You raised your voice. I felt a stabbing pain in my chest, my throat closes,
and I feel like I am gasping for air. You have never seen this before, because I've always
hid it. Your eyes get big. You aren’t scared, but concerned.

“What is wrong?” you ask.

“I….I am having an anxiety attack. I never wanted you to see me this way,” I
say with my head facing the ground. I am taking deep breaths to refocus.
Instead of fear, or judgement, you respond in love.

“What can I do?” you ask.

“I don’t know...maybe just hold me.”  You lay down on the couch, and
you open your arms to me. I lay next to you, my back facing you… and I just breathe.
You stroke my hair. 

“I did not know you were struggling with this. You know you can talk to me about anything.” 

I nod my head in agreement. For a few minutes, I cry partly because I don’t know
any other way to release this anxiety. And, because I never thought a man could love me
in my illness. I close my eyes for a moment and I feel love.

I wanna go back to the moment I got off the plane, and I saw you. It was like those scenes
in the romantic movies. Time stood still as I saw you walk closer to me. Before I can
say a word, you place your hand against my face and say, “God you are beautiful.”
We kiss, soft, slow, and without care. For this moment I feel love.

I wanna go back to that day I come home from work, and see a pink heart on my front door.
It reads, ‘All the reasons I love you’. When I unlock the door, and push it open I see
red roses petals lining the hallway. There are pink hearts everywhere; on the sofa,
the cabinets, the toaster, the refrigerator, the bed. Too many to count. Each one with a
sweet message of why you love me. 

One reads, ‘I love your smile’. 

We are dating long distance and you’ve gone back home….
but I will find these pink hearts in my apartment for days.
When I close my eyes I remember real love.

I wanna go back to the moment, I close myself in the bathroom to cry.
Cry because my mother has cancer. Cry because my parents are divorced.
Cry because I am sad. You push open the door, and sit next to me. You hold me while
I cry and say, “We will fight this together.” 

I wanna go back to that night in Lexington… how you look at me under the
summer night sky. We are standing with a group around a bonfire, but I can only feel the
two of us. We make love that night. Something I hadve never experienced. In your arms
I know now I’ve only ever been having sex, it was never love. I am forever changed because
of how you hold me, attend to me, touch and admire me, When I close my eyes I remember real love.

And, these moments in love are only a few of the many I have experienced in my life.
So while at times I want to curse love and men forever… my heart won’t let me. It takes
me back to these moments when I felt real love… and even those these moments happened
with different men, at different times, and different ways….for those few moments I know in
my soul I felt real love… and that is worth remembering… it is worth hoping for again…
I wanna go back to those moments in love.