Timeline of love
(Different from satellite of love, btw)
I had a thought when I was taking my b12 vitamin today that I think is important to share: it’s never too late to tell someone you love them. Or too early, for that matter.
The timeline of love is something I think a lot about. I tried to research it for a few weeks yet now I have decided that I may have coined the term.
I proclaim here and now that the timeline of love can be defined by the love you feel inside swirling around the love you seek bouncing into the love you receive during the time you exist here on earth.
I was 15 and my first love was sitting in the front seat of the station wagon my mom was driving. I was in the backseat looking at the road covered in slush. That’s what us midwesterners call snow mixed with dirt and oil. We were all headed to the roller rink for a birthday party and I could not keep my hands off my crush.
I kept sneaking my arm between the passenger side and the door to touch the back of his right elbow. It’s all I wanted to do-touch his elbow because “I Loooooved Him.” (✿ ♥‿♥) I felt a buzz in my pocket. My mom’s emergency cell phone. For emergencies only.
I wasn’t supposed to text on that phone because it cost too much.
Three more buzzes. One buzz was fine—-but now, I was over my limit.
2 buzzes = ¢30 cents.
I tried to silence it but I wasn’t quick enough. My mom frowned.
I knew I had blown it. That’s okay. I’d just skate it off.
Older men would usually throw money at me when I skated. Not much, maybe I’d make 4 dollars. But that’s only if they turned on the blacklight and played Hot in Here by Nelly.
I never told my crush I loved him because that night I saw him kiss another girl. Even though when we got back into the vehicle to go home we held hands the whole way. Instead, I sent him an Instant Message that said “name redacted Will you be my boyfriend?”
He ended up moving away to somewhere cool like Colorado.
He blocked me on Aol Instant Messenger, eventually, partly because I kept inviting him to play checkers with me on excite.com and partly because he “didn’t like me like that.”
I share this story as a hilarious anecdotal way for me to define the timeline of love. Instead of sharing my deep love I instead tried to lay claim or ownership or put a label to define my feelings for him. On any other day (like Today)- 17 years later, thinking about this I would have thought how cute, funny, & sad and then sigh. But not today. Today I use it to define the timeline of love. In the year 2005 I loved someone for the first time, I desired love, I received love-even if it wasn’t welcomed or invited (from older men watching me skate to name a few)—and that’s how it is for everyone (maybe). The timeline of love is present in everyone’s life-sure-certainly—we can all agree on that? Hm? However, it’s important to note that love is endless. It’s like the rain-showing up and flooding shit that you didn’t want flooded. Sometimes it’s like a wave, douching you in the nasal cavity, unexpected and uninvited. My timeline of love is wonky, like a roller coaster that is constantly being built, torn down and repaired...and sometimes it’s like a calm lake in the middle of summer with an ice cold glass of something fantastic.
I bet that your timeline of love is spectacular. I would love to hear about it sometime. Just use the hashtag #timelineoflove so that we can get this bonkers business started. I didn’t use to care about hashtags but now I love them. They come into my timeline of love in around ~2010. ✌.ʕʘ‿ʘʔ.✌
List making comes into my timeline of love in 1998 when my brother bought me my own diary that had a programmable lock.
My own lists, under lock and key.
Ahem, voice password. I’ll give you two hints what it was…
It rhymes with movies.
I have two of them.
Yeah. The password was boobies.
”BOOBIES.”
<PASSWORD ACCEPTED> *tts voice*
My sister stole it and changed the password but then she forgot what it was and we passed it back and forth guessing for hours in an effort to unlock it.
It was all fun and games until the batteries wore out and when we couldn’t pry it open with a pen, a pair of scissors and a chopstick we put new batteries back in, but there was no resetting the password. So, my sister threw it down the stairs for me and it shattered into about fifty pink and plastic pieces.
Bye, bye password journal.
<PASSWORD DENIED> *tts voice*
Thinking more about lists and my timeline of love, I reimagined something I would say to my 18 year old self who was going through a crisis.
Let’s pretend I had access to that ghost mail box that Sandra Bullock had in The Lakehouse.
Dear 18 y/o me:
Everything you are searching for from your dreams that you’ve been missing-all that Love you are yearning for is actually within you and you have the power to create a miracle every day for your heart but you just gotta choose it for yourself.
Things seem out of control right now but in reality it’s not all that bad. Yeah you’re broke. But you’re about to have the time of your life. In about 3 years, everything going on will change-and change for the better and even though that sounds cliché as balls-you are the Love. You are the Sun. The brightness of your being is generated from within and you don’t need their validation, instead, they desperately seek yours.
Instead give them kindness. You are the reason all those people want something-your time and your energy-they all want to rob that from you-but you don’t need to give it to them or give away your beautiful energy so freely. Your kindness does not need to be payment for anything, give it freely without ever expecting any in return. You don’t have to call them back and you don’t have to be treated this way. In case you didn’t know already-The song you sing is Love. Who am I kidding>? you’ve always known it. Embrace the love within and you will find your light.
-xoxo Your 33 year old you
(p.s. people will stop saying balls so much around 2009 so maybe give that word an early retirement, you will thank me later)
Take home point: The timeline of love inside of every one of us is elastic, moldable, changeable.
Don’t let anyone tell you differently.
It’s never too early or too late to tell someone you love them.
Their timeline of love is chugging along exponentially so no matter if they don’t say they love you back-remember, don’t be weird. No hiding in the bushes. No long treks through the wilderness to surprise them on their birthday while they are vacationing with their fiancè. Maybe love some people from afar. Maybe let them love you back in their own ways. It doesn’t mean you don’t have love in your life. Forcing someone onto your timeline of love ultimately doesn’t work! In my experience, it regresses your own true love focus. There is too much loving to be done to waste time wanting, craving, fixating. Love yourself, love a cat, a tree, a hotdog, a new song, a new movie. Loving takes place moment to moment.
My love for nature on my #timelineoflove first appeared in 1990 when I let a caterpillar crawl from my right elbow all the way to my wrist, to my index, to my right cheek. I was in love. I was fascinated. I was held in that pre-butterfly’s magnificence for as long as it would have me. As long as it wanted to walk all over my skin, legs lighter than a soft gust of warm August air, glistening opalescent green and orange and blue in the sunlight.
That’s what love can be hiding--lingering like chewing gum on a bench or moss covered rock: it’s there when you need it, shining as long as you allow it, as long as you keep loving.
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