essay

Crazy Love

Valentine, if you would have me be thine, I beseech thee, read the instruction manual first. I will appear to be perfectly sane when first we meet in a café, at a class, or at dinner with our match-making friends. You will notice, with enthusiasm, that I am balanced, run as smoothly as a well-oiled motor, and am subtly attuned and responsive to variances in the environment. You’ll find me sophisticated and practical, firmly in charge of my schedule and my priorities. I will prove to be a sprite, enchanting maiden and wise woman all rolled into one, with texting capabilities, wireless networking, and a built-in humor default: a kind of iValentine, with features you never even knew you needed and now can’t do without.

But just after we’ve achieved an easy familiarity, after you realize that we are uncannily suited, you will observe a few discomfiting incongruities, aberrations in what at first appeared to be a streamlined, user-friendly operating system. In other words, I will start to do some really stupid things in the name of love.

Look closely at the thumb on my left hand. See those scars from where it was sewn up in the hospital when I was five? Unlike my right thumb, it doesn’t bend at all. The handsome Lewis Maxwell talked me into getting in his family’s station wagon with him, then proceeded to slam the car door on my hand, breaking my thumb and sending me to surgery.

At seven, I gazed into Billy Gannett’s hazel eyes, felt my heart skip, and “mailed” my Barbie doll and the cigar box containing her belongings, just as he had asked. Hours later, waiting sadly for the postman to release Barbie and her wardrobe from the corner mailbox, I wondered at the pain of my devotion.

I’ve made a career out of love-stricken lunacy. In the not-too-distant past, I’ve shelled out forty bucks for a fancy bottle of Cabernet to have on hand, though he would have been fine with a six-pack of local beer. I’ve left early from work to wash my car, never mind that he would never notice on a dark night, or shopped frantically for a new outfit an hour before a big date watching movies at home. I’ve chuckled at jokes which weren’t the least bit funny, or applauded a guitar song he wrote, just because he wrote it. I agreed earnestly that he did sound almost exactly like Bruce Springsteen, a statement so far from the truth it ought to send me straight to Purgatory.

I’ve cooked an Indian meal from scratch, a venture requiring visits to three different shops to find ingredients for the perfect curry. I’ve apologized sincerely for something we both knew was his fault from the get-go, I’ve been charming to his obnoxious ex-girlfriend. I’ve called his mother in Iowa to wish her happy birthday when he didn’t have time, though she’d never met me. “It’s wonderful just being friends,” I’ve told him, when I knew the big “L” word would scare him out of his wits.

Falling in love, for me, is like the first trimester of pregnancy—I want to eat weird stuff, I want to call my friends with the details, I want to be alone, I want to nest, I want to throw up. I am suddenly so hyper-sensitive to his most innocent remarks that he’d do well to suggest a vow of silence until we’re on firmer ground. When he said I was “funny” the other night, did he mean funny ha-ha or funny-peculiar or funny-I-want-to-date-other-women-now?

Sappy songs on the radio are filled with radiant new meaning, and Motown oldies inspire me to spend an hour inventing ridiculous dance moves, just when I’m supposed to be finishing a crucial work project.

In this era of complex gadgetry, no communications system can be presumed quite adequate—innocent double-checking of devices turns horrifyingly obsessive overnight. Did he text, did he call, did he email, did he beep, did he make contact by telepathy? Better check again, just in case.

I’m faint, I’m frantic, I’m numb, I’m ecstatic, I’m certifiable. I need medication, counseling, yoga, red highlights, or maybe just a nap. I need to end this relationship right this minute, I need a firm commitment. I need to go to South Africa or someplace where I don’t know a soul, for an extended period.

The good news, Valentine, is that I will return to my normal self, I promise, just in time for you to go through any number of crazy antics without even ruffling my self-esteem. By the time you Need to Take Some Space, bring me a misspelled poem you wrote on a napkin when you were drunk, crash my computer while swearing you know how to fix it, I’m cool, I’m calm, I’m practically invincible. When you invite your cousin Ned to stay at your place for a month, wonder if your last girlfriend, now married, was really the love of your life after all, and forget my birthday, I can make all the right allowances at the right time. Want to act like a pompous fool at a party? Irrationally panicked at the idea of your toothbrush next to mine in the same ceramic holder? Grinning like a circus monkey at the waitress in the short skirt? Not a deal-breaker.

When you come to your senses, you’ll find I’m right here where you dropped me, no worse for the fall. I’m crazy for love, but not crazy. Take my hand, idiot man, I swear I hear the music starting up again.

~Stacy Appel

Stacy Appel is a writer in California whose work has been featured in The Chicago Tribune and other publications. She has also written for National Public Radio. Email her at WordWork101@aol.com