Hurricane Love

What is love? An internet search will give you a google of answers on that four letter word. Many say it is an emotion that comes from the heart. Some define it as actions. It is a curse and a cure. It heals and it damages. Love can be the best and worst thing to happen to a person. When love hurts, people use it to soothe. I think of love as a storm, that shows up out of nowhere because the conditions are right. It's something you see coming, know it's dangerous, yet can't take your eyes off of it and while you seek shelter from it, you embrace the experience of going thru it because you know that you will not be the same after that whirl wind comes thru and picks up your life, your belongings and throws everything around, ripping the shelter you created and putting all of your personal stuff on display as a ripped up, scattered, soaked mess. When it's over, you are left to sort thru the mess, all the while telling yourself "it's okay, this experience will make me stronger".
There are many songs, stories, art and poems made about love. Some see it as the greatest and some as the worst. It depends on the experience. Perhaps love is an excuse. Or a reason. An excuse to give up and a reason to go on, love is both of these at once. It makes and breaks us all and yet we still create it, seek it, long for it. Even those who have sworn to give up love carry it around and let it define who they are or aren't. We make our reason to live and die. One four letter word, a big oxymoron, yet the biggest motivator for mankind, can also be a huge demotivation.
I don't know what love is. I've been the creator of it's storm and I've been victim of it's destruction. Love is perhaps a powerful thought that every cell in our bodies needs to thrive and survive. I currently find myself in love and broken hearted. I certainly asked for it, watched it coming and instead of seeking shelter, I got naked and did a rain dance, I all but begged that hurricane to come pummeling thru my life and toss it all about, simply for the thrill of it. I knew what would happen as the winds blew thru my hair, gently at first, quickly picking up speed and I didn't try to find shelter. I wanted to be one with the storm because it hurt not to. I used love to heal damages of love. How silly of me, but it worked. Sorta hard to remember the last storm as another one rips thru you.
My first love was my mother. I needed to love her and I needed her to love me. The love my mother had with the man who helped create me also became the love that tried to destroy me. She told him she was pregnant and he tried to cut me out. Lucky for me my mother loved me then, she shielded her womb and took a couple of slashes to her leg instead. She says later, "after he sobered up, he wanted you". I think those words were my mother's hope for love with him or her love for me because that man never saw me before he died. I was only a month old when he was ran down on the highway. I wonder if he thought of me then. I spent my entire youth loving a man I never knew and as my protecting mother told the story, he died the day I was born, on his way to see me. I imagine I'd be a different person if I grew up with the truth. I stopped loving the mythological father when I turned 17 and found his obituary and my questions were met with honest answers for the first time.
I had many loves, coming from a large family, but my mothers only child. There was also a lot of hurt within the love from that family. The good and the bad, all shaped me, each experience making me rebuild all I thought I knew and all I thought I was, until I became different person. As I matured, I found the different kinds of love, the love for friends, pets, things and potential soul mates. I've had love lift me up and I've had love wrap it's hand around my neck to take my last breath. Since I'm a fighter, I'm here to tell about it. If there was a such thing as do-overs, I'd pass and let be what has been.
Currently I am having a late night love affair with coffee and perhaps it's the caffeine that has my hands jittery but maybe also it is the recollection of love that's making my heart beat faster than usual and my hands unsteady, with racing thoughts and pulse. I love the feeling and at the same time I don't. I can dump the coffee but I'm still going to feel the effects, just like love.