30 Day Love / Truth Challenge DAY 7: Have you ever been deeply in love? Explain.

I've really got to say something up front about this one. I don't ever love half-assed. So the answer is most definitely a YES! I think this is why I end up feeling so hurt if a relationship doesn't work out. I give my all, my everything, to that person. I don't know any other way to love but DEEP. I've been sitting here trying to think if this was going to be about just one man, but it can't be...because after some reflection on it, I've been deeply in love 3 times in my life. I've loved other people before, but as far as that gut wrenching, all-encompassing kind of love....just three.

I'd have to say my first deep love was someone I've already written about in this challenge....my first love, Jim Bonetti. There's actually something really funny about all this. I wrote that blog entry for this challenge about him, and two days later, I saw his name on a post on another friend's wall. I haven't seen or heard anything out of Jim Bonetti for 18 YEARS, and there his name was staring out at me like a neon sign, 2 days after writing a blog about my first love. Talk about twilight zone shit right there! (I have since added him to my Facebook friends list and chatted with him a couple times). So, he was my first deep love. Granted, I was 16 years old, very young and inexperienced, but I knew the feeling when it hit me. Like I said in the last blog about him, I was concerned more with the person he was inside than with what all the other little girls in town wanted from him. He had a reputation for being a lady's man. I never saw that side of him. I suppose because I didn't meet him in that capacity. I wasn't trying to "hook up". I kind of got thrust into meeting him. He wasn't like all the other guys. He paid attention to me. Jim was smart in my eyes, and a hard worker. He was always at work, or working on his lowrider truck. He included me in stuff, and was a pretty popular guy. (I'm sure a lot of the popular girls he knew back then were wondering what in the hell he was doing with some no name person like me).  I knew I loved him long before I ever told him. I was comfortable with him, and he never pressured me for anything. That deep love I felt led me to give him that most precious part of me, and even though things didn't work out with him, I CAN'T say I regret him being my first. The man was my first EVERYTHING lol.

My second time being truly in love, was the MOST intense, and also one of the ways that is most looked down upon. His name is Mark, and he took up four years of my life. We met online, and have never met in person, but I can honestly say, the love I felt for him was deeper and stronger than pretty much any love I've ever known. We met on Pogo about 4 years ago, and INSTANTLY clicked. Our personalities are identical. He's definitely like the male version of Gina. (Gawd help the world lol). I wasn't even initially attracted to the man. (He always hated me reminding him of that). What I WAS attracted to, was the connection between us, instantaneous and strong right from the beginning. Where you saw one online, you saw the other....ALWAYS. He came along at a time in my life when I was shut down completely on an emotional level. In my opinion, life was SHIT, and I was content to stay wrapped up inside that deep dark hole I felt I was in. Mark brought me out of it.He was my "Sunshine". (That was his nickname from me, which incidentally was my first tattoo...a penguin, private joke between he and I, and Sunshine written under it). He was my sanity. He gave my sanity back to me anyway. I could talk to him about anything...anytime, no matter what it was, he would listen. He offered comfort and advice (not that I ever took advice well lol). Mark was my best friend. I became dependent on him....completely. I think we were actually dependent on each other. It's like we couldn't function all day without talking to each other. I got to know him VERY well in that first 8 months. There wasn't a day we weren't online together less than 8 hours a day. ( I was unemployed and he worked from home a lot doing computer programming). Everything about us was intense...every convo, every feeling, every shared connection. We admitted that we knew if we were ever together in the same room, it would be like spontaneous combustion. I was in love, and very vocal about it...and I realized it within the first 6 months. It took Mark a lot longer to admit he felt something too. He is like most people in the world. If he can't touch it, taste it, see it in person, then it isn't real. I KNEW he felt something, but me knowing it inside and him admitting to it were two different things. I needed the admission. I didn't want to be the only one feeling crazy inside like that. I needed it to be mutual so badly. I got my admission about 2 years in. Long story short, we argued just as intensely as we loved each other. It's hard to have feelings for someone you can't get to. For him it was A LOT harder because of the non-tangibility factor.  He ended up dating a "fuck buddy", then eventually married her. I was still there the whole time. Neither one of us seemed to be able to manage to "walk away". HE tried....several times, in fact, but he always ended up coming back. It eventually started causing problems in his marriage. The wife and I even got into it. She admitted to me that she knew his feelings for me were far more than just a friendship and that he had a NEED, and not just a desire, to talk to me. Therefore, I was a threat to her marriage. Mark and I saw each other through a lot of personal issues...some deaths of important people...family stuff...my relationship attempts...and problems in his marriage due to his inability to "let go" of me. I firmly believe none of my attempts to be with someone during those 4 years were successful due to being in love with him. No one measured up to my idea of him in my mind. He was married, so naturally I had resigned myself to the fact that I was never going to be with him, but both of us needed each other in the other one's life. We decided to stay friends. There was the occasional "crossing of the line" between us. We never seemed to be able to stop doing that. (Our friendship is currently over, but that didn't happen until quite recently, and that's another blog altogether).

The third time, I've also written about him. He was my last / most recent love. Josh. Ahhhhh Josh. What can I say. He was my whirlwind love. The kind that sneaks up on you. I didn't even realize how MUCH I loved him, until after we broke up, or should I say...until after HE broke up with me. That most definitely was NOT my choice of things to do. Pffffft. Other than Mark, there hadn't been a man in YEARS that made me truly want to be a part of a relationship...until Josh. I was crazy about him. He was smart, funny as hell, and I just wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to soak up all that and bring it into myself. It was probably THE fastest I have ever fallen for somebody in my life. Crazy, stupid love, but completely intense, and profoundly real. I don't think there's ever been a man that has intrigued me as much as he did, and still does to this day. The man is an island. I was trying to build my forever tree house on that island, and failed. It is amazing though, that after so much pain in the end with him, that I am able to still look at him with love. I honestly can't help it. He just touched some of the deepest parts of my soul and that's a hard thing for any man to do. I think I'm an island too...but that turd somehow managed to plant his flag on it. Ohhhh man, he's good. Sneaky bastid lol.


In the end, what it boils down to is this. The deeper the love was with someone, the longer it sticks around. Sometimes, you love people forever. I think these three will remain my "forever loves" for a reason. They affected and changed my life greatly in different ways. The strongest loves also sometimes end up hurting the worst. I will never regret them though. They are a part of me.