I Loved Him To An Uncomfortable Degree

I hate the beach. I hate hearing the waves crash and pretending like I’m not cold, pretending like the salt that sticks to my skin isn’t drying and irritating and making my cuticles burn. I hate feeling the gritty sand climbing up my legs and working it’s way all over me and into each thread of my clothes. I hate tiptoeing around the seaweed that’s washed up and the rocks who’ve been tossed and turned until they form jagged little edges that just want to slice your foot open.

I hate everything about it.

I hate hearing about how love is like oceans. Deep, uncharted, vast and every synonym in between. I hate watching people try to describe their love like the entity, the element that covers 70% of our planet. As if the two of them and their oh-so-complicated feelings could even laughably attempt to rival the quantities of Atlantic, the Arctic, and the Pacific.

Our love was never like an ocean. It didn’t ebb and flow like the tide, it wasn’t immeasurable or house space to grow millions and millions of microscopic moments. It wasn’t an indescribable shade of blue and would have looked ridiculous with an inspirational quote beneath it.

Our love was like the sand, creeping and crawling all over and finding itself in each and every part of me. I could shower and change the sheets but there it would be. Little bastards just clinging and clinging and never letting go. It was everywhere, itchy and demanding to be acknowledged. But even though it was no ocean, I’d still like to see you count each grain of sand on a mile long beach.

I hate fine wine and the attitude that comes along with it. I hate pretending like I can taste whispers of oak or smoke when I just want to drink my fucking merlot and not have anyone bother me about what’s lingering on my pallet. I hate swirling it in the glass and watching it spin because I don’t get it. I hate paying $85 for something that will only pour five, respectable glasses when I could get the same thing for an eighth of the price and probably with a cuter label.

I hate hearing how love is like that obnoxious fine wine. Better with time, better with age. That the longer the love is around the stronger and more delicious it will be. As if some proverbial amount of days passing gives you that much more insight into the person you sleep next to. The more time you have to really taste, to sample, to relish your love, to really appreciate it, the better it will come out in the long run.

We were never a fine wine. We had no patience for aerating, for lingering. We were insatiable and looking for instant gratification. He wanted me and I wanted him and no amount of “getting better with time” promises would have kept me from exploring every inch of him from the first time those hazel eyes gave me a glance. We were never savoring or sampling, we were binge drinking and messy. And even though he may have stained me like spilled wine all over a white shirt, I never ever considered trying to wash it out.

I hate portion control. “A fist sized amount of rice” or “a heaping handful of spinach.” I hate being told how to build my meals and what to put into my body and how to fill myself to be the best possible me. I hate listening even when I know it’s right; I hate being told what to do. I hate feeling like I’m being told how to take care of myself when I know that I can do it myself. Take some of the good, take a little bad, but make it about balance.

I hate it when balance feels forced.

Our love was unmanageable, wild, eating-past-our-fill, and staying up too late. It was sleeping in past alarms and not caring about things like “too much sugar.” There was no ‘no’ being said, only acceptance of the things we could not change. More often than not my hands would toss up in a shrug because I knew that try as I might, I would never be able to tell him what to do, and vice versa. He was my wild boy and I was just lucky to explore the forest behind him.

We were never poetry, we were never metaphors. We were a state of organized chaos. We were never the things that people write songs about or someone says, “That. I want that.” We were the laundry piling up on the couch because no one bothered to put it away and dirty footprints on the tile because it was more fun to go out in the rain without shoes. We were cheap wine that led to headaches and sand in the hairline that scrapes at the scalp in the shower. We were blackouts at 4 AM and hangovers that lasted until next week. We were far from perfect and settled somewhere more in the indescribable uncomfortable world. But through it all, through all of the wrinkled shirts and red wine stained teeth framing ever imperfection, we were love.

And I never hated a second of it.