carnival rides

There are times really late at night when I’m driving down the road, headlights bouncing off the tarred freeway, night engulfing my car, and I have the urge to press on the gas pedal as if my shoes are full of rocks. I want to go fast; to roll down all my windows and feel the wind on my face, in my hair, sucking down my throat and filling my lungs. I wonder, how fast do you think I can go? I want to feel like I’m on a rollercoaster; maybe like Space Mountain, sitting in the dark, eyes shut, hands up, screaming with joy, not pain, feeling the darkness and the wind swallow me whole. Can I go as fast as Space Mountain? I want to see the stars go by, turn after turn, hill after hill. I want to see the streetlights fly by, so fast they look like one long streak of yellow and white. I want to go faster than any of those roller coasters go, faster than a NASCAR driver. I want my speedometer to reach its capacity and start vibrating because it can’t go any farther. What would happen if I slammed my foot on the gas? I want to wonder if I will go so fast that my car will spin out of control like one of those scrambler rides at the carnivals.

I’ll wonder while I’m spinning if I will think I’m dying; if I will think that this is the last moment of my life and try to see my life flash like they always say it does. I wonder if your life really does flash before your eyes – if I’ll see myself as a baby, as a child, as a teenager, as an adult, and I wonder what I’d see. I wonder if I’d see my mom and dad and my sisters and grandparents and my best friends. I wonder if I’d see elementary school parades, senior prom, college graduation, my niece’s birth. I wonder if I would see you.

what's love got to do with it?

I used to think that song was so stupid because I was naïve enough to think that the Beatles were right -- that all you need is love.

I love the Beatles – and I hate to burst all the Beatles-lovers bubbles – but they lied.

Sometimes, love has very little to do with it. Sometimes love isn’t enough to save someone or to save a relationship. Sometimes love can’t keep two people together because sometimes the hurt and pain and insecurities that the world has shown us are so much bigger than that love.

Loving someone who loves you (or at least says they do) but can’t get it together enough to make a relationship work is one of the worst feelings a person can go through (aside from death, cancer, or AIDS, although I’ve never had cancer, AIDS, or been dead, so really, I can only base this conjecture off of experience). Having someone run away from his or her life because he or she can’t deal and leaves you with the aftermath sucks. And, what sucks even more is loving that person so much, that even though you’re on the path where you know you need to be – establishing a career, figuring out who you are and where you want to be – you can’t stop worrying about him or her. You care about that person so much that you still pray every night that they are happy and healthy. You still want him or her to be well and to take care of him or herself and to find out why he or she ran away in the first place.

Everyone always says love is the greatest thing, but sometimes, it’s the most lonely, hurtful place. Sometimes love is hard. Sometimes it means not getting anything in return. Sometimes love is the worst thing – sometimes it means caring about someone that may or may not care about you and loving someone who can’t see or feel that love in return. Sometimes it means letting the songbird fly, hoping that it will find it’s way back eventually.