What is love? It’s amazing how such a simple three word question can have such a complicated answer. To love and be loved is something human beings naturally try to achieve; but like most things in life, it really isn’t that easy. Then throw in lust, the physical and sometimes emotional attraction to someone. It mixes up hormones and confuses emotions to the point where someone who may seem beautiful will be enough for us to claim to be in love. I admit it; I’ve been in lust with many women. I’ve had countless crushes and liked them all the same. There was a sense of mystery with these females, just a touch of something that I didn’t know about them that made them all the more attractive. That is what got me most of the time. That sense of mystery is what drives lust. It’s that fine line between wanting to know anything and everything about her, but then also not wanting to know for fear she wasn’t everything you thought she was. Especially if that mysterious fact was whether or not she had feelings for you; that can be the worst feeling in the world. So instead we keep the mystery alive by just admiring from afar. For years I did just that and feared for a time that I would never know what it was like for a woman to love me. I feared that I would never look into a woman’s eyes and see her burning desire for me. But at 26, as I was standing in the mirror giving myself one last look, I could say I was in love with a woman that loved me back. And that night, I was going to ask her to marry me.
I’ve been nervous before; there have been many situations that caused me to become nervous. The nerve endings in my palms would tingle and my body would race with exhilaration, anticipation, and a fear of falling flat on my face. But this was a different kind of nervous. My stomach was lurching with every step. Each time I thought about the night ahead, my stomach flipped around and made me sick. Every now and then my heart would pick up its pace and pound in my throat. I thought I had felt nervous before, but this topped it easily.
I took my time in getting ready. Granted I wasn’t doing anything too fancy, but I still wanted to look perfect. After coming back from the barber with a fresh cut, I took a long shower. I made sure every inch of my body was scrubbed, no an atom of dirt or grime could remain. I put on my favorite blue striped button-up with my favorite pair of Levi 501s. Even with me taking my time, I was ready in about an hour and in my car headed to her place. On the way to pick her up, I couldn’t help but remember the day we first met. At the time, I was the assistant manager of a diner in town and every morning she would come in to eat. I had regulars, and she was one of them, but I noticed her more out of everyone because she did the same exact thing every day. Okay, so regulars do the same thing every time they came in the restaurant, so the real reason she struck me as being so beautiful. My co-workers caught to me sneaking glances at her and pestered me about it for weeks. Finally I decided to walk over to her table and talk to her. That day, it wasn’t particularly busy so I didn’t feel so bad singling her out.
“Is the food okay, ma’am?” I said to her as I approached her table. She flipped her shoulder-length brown hair as she looked up at me. That’s when I first saw her eyes, those beautiful green eyes. They weren’t green like I’ve seen before. Her green eyes were of a brilliancy that resembled a piece of jade. Better yet, her eyes were the color of jade. Either way, they were beautiful and I was so lost in her eyes that I almost didn’t hear her response.
“Yeah everything is fine, here. Same as it always is.” She flashed a smile.
“Speaking of, I did notice you frequent this place.”
She nodded her head a few times before speaking. “Yup, every day at 7am. I see that you frequent this place as well,” she said with wink and smile.
I chuckled and shrugged my shoulders. “Yeah well the diner was saying something about how assistant managers are required to come to work so…” I let the sentence trail off in the air as I got her to laugh at the joke.
