The 'L' Word

I've never experienced love and it scares me that so many people I know to throw it round like a basketball. They know they have conviction in their passt, but I'm worried eventually I'll have to catch the ball and expect to score a goal. Exactly. It feels that overwhelming. I could be in the middle of the court, I could be near the goal, but scoring that basket feels like a very epic battle for me.

My feelings have always been under question since they fluctuate on a whim, almost uncontrollably. They can hover over me like an umbrella; trying to shield me from all the piss that flies out of everyone's mouths and sometimes flood my insides like a deluge of drowsiness.

I mean, What am I supposed to do if someone utters that word before me and I'm not there? Perhaps that word is just something that is relative to each person - each feeling can never be exactly replicated for another. For example, I love my parents so much, and some of my friends so much too. In different ways. Maybe that is the way too. But if someone says it to me and I don't feel it, or don't think I do, have I fucked everything up?

Its a constant anxiety because for me, someone to love me would be perfect. If someone can look me in the eye and tell me that they will be there for me through good and bad, it would make me ecstatic. And happy. Then low. Then angry. It would be like spinning a wheel of fortune and everything thrown at someone at once. I'm worried. God, I'm fucking worried that I would just ruin it. It would make me feel far too much to be able to cope with it. I don't want to love someone if I'm just going to burden them with an explosion of emotions that I'm unable to contain.

I guess that's why I'm attracted to the idea of sacrifice. Like Jean Grey, or Jesus... I guess I wonder whether I'm going to have relinquish that kind of intimacy so that I can exist like a relatively normal human being, and so I can't hurt anyone, or so I can save everyone from a potential self-destructive downward spiral.

But isn't that something that is in love? Hurt? How do we love if we don't accidentally inflict pain upon someone? I've been hurt a lot, but I still don't know the diametrical opposite. I don't know what its like. People ask me if I have ever been in love, mainly because I've slept with a lot of guys and frankly, I haven't. I just feel self-depreciated and dried up. I'm worried that I'll simultaneously fall in love and live in solitary confinement for the rest of my days.

Love. Its a scary word. Its not 'lovely'. It fucking scares me so much. So fucking much.