Psst. I have a secret that I want to share with you and you alone.

I am falling in love.

“Eww! Gross! Laurie, c’mon! I’m trying to eat my dinner, man!”

Go ahead. Have your “Einhorn is a man!” moment. I’ll wait. Do you have enough gum?

Look. I wasn’t expecting this, either. I was perfectly content living my completely self-contained life, reading Cat Fancy magazine, planning my meals for one, whilst occasionally drinking myself into oblivion.

And then I met Her.

I use the phrase “falling” in love to lend some pretext to the romantic notion that this emotional event is a subtle transition that is occurring in real time, that with every full rotation of the Earth I am growing closer to utterly acquiescing and completely surrendering my heart. (Wow. Lookit all the big words I just used. More and more this is starting to sound like just another article torn from the pages of Penthouse Forum.)

Saying I’m “falling” in love helps make it seem like I’m being 1)rational; 2)reserved; 3)careful; and 4)cautious. In fact, I’m being none of those. I’m 42 years old. Like Dick Cheney when he has a heart “episode”, I am old enough to recognize the symptoms. He’s experienced enough “episodes” to know when he’s having a heart attack versus when he simply ate one too many Funyuns. And I know full well that I am in love. I have been from the first spark of laughter, the first look, that we shared together. She is a very special woman and my life will never be the same now that I’ve met her.

Now, at this point, please allow me to explain something to you fine, upstanding people who undoubtedly think that I am about as stable as Anne Heche, what with the falling in love at the drop of a hat and all. Just because I’m in love doesn’t mean that I have any expectations about this relationship. I don’t. No, really. I don’t. (Because there are complications. Oh. Yes. There are. Of course there are.) But, I don’t believe in beating around…(okay, I was going to say “beating around the bush,” but I know all of my immature readers would snicker and think I was trying to make a cute lesbian pun)…I don’t believe in pussyfooting…(okay, again, it’s just an expression. Jesus! Grow up, people!)…I don’t believe in half-measures. I know with as much certainty today that I am in love with this woman as I am going to know six months or ten years from now. The only thing I don’t know about The Future is whether or not my being in love with her is enough conquer Life’s Obstacles. Trying to keep my heart in reserve while that is being determined isn’t going to save me from any heartache, if that is what is on the horizon.

I haven’t always believed in love at first sight. I guarded my heart when I was young. (It didn’t get me very far, I’ll have you know.) I held back emotionally. (It seemed like the reasonable thing to do.) And, you know what? Here is the epiphany I had after all the little dramadies that I endearingly refer to as “past relationships” were said and done: When I was afraid of getting hurt going into a relationship, not only did I inevitably get hurt by said relationship, but that fear reinforced the belief that relationships generally suck, which in turn hardened me and made me more guarded for the next one. My heart gradually became calcified by fear. (And I don’t even want to BEGIN to describe what it did to my bagina.)

Now, look. I’m a Virgo. I pack six pairs of socks for an overnight trip. I’m afraid to watch “Intervention” for fear that I’m going to become an addict through osmosis. I want my rollercoasters to come equipped with airbags. Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t ride rollercoasters! Far too dangerous. I’m not exactly wild and crazy or overly-confident. If I was in charge of naming the perfumes at Estée Lauder, the top four would be: Rational. Reserved. Careful. And Cautious. So for me to become so intoxicated like this, to tumble headfirst down this Slip n’ Slide of Love, something pretty extraordinary must have occurred.

All my life I’ve been haunted by a vision of a brown eyed woman. These dreams are never very complicated. She looks at me, we silently share an emotion more powerful than words can express and I wake up, shaken to my core by the connection I just felt in my subconscious. I’ve only had that dream, oh, about a thousand times in my life. That brown eyed woman has never been anything more than a figment of my imagination. I had so relegated her to the realm of fantasy that I did not think it was possible to share a look like that with another human being in the Waking World. And then I shared that look with Her and I realized I wasn’t asleep.

And, that’s it, basically. She now possesses my heart. There’s really not much more to it than that.

“That’s IT, Laurie? You specifically used the word ‘extraordinary.’ There hardly seems anything ‘extraordinary’ about looking at someone. God dammit, I’m unsubscribing to this blog. If you want to entice me with stories about your love life, you need to describe full-blown orgasms, dammit! You’re a LESBIAN! Wow me with some lesbian shit!” ~ I can almost hear you say. To which I respond, “Ssh, Mother. Go watch ‘Dancing With the Stars.'”

I’ve learned to listen to my instincts as I’ve gotten older. And my instincts started screaming at me almost as soon as I met Her: “She’s beautiful!” “Did you hear that laugh? Laurie!? Did you hear that? That is a woman who KNOWS how to laugh! Make her laugh some more, Laurie!” “Look at how kind she is? Did you see what she just did?” I just asked for her phone number to get my instincts to shut the fuck up, really.

I don’t know what The Future holds. Honestly–eep!–it doesn’t look great. There are A LOT of obstacles to overcome. I mean, this is the ABC’s “Wipeout” of potential relationships. So, I’m not going to think about The Future. All I can do is take it one day at a time. I’m grateful that I get to spend time with her, that I get to tell her that she’s beautiful, that I get to share that Look with her. If it all disappears tomorrow, at least we’ve had that. But…oh, the possibilities The Future holds. I’m looking forward to the day I can look into her eyes and tell her I love her. Because we haven’t reached that stage in our relationship, you see. As far as she knows, I merely like her. A lot. And maybe that’s all she wants from me. Maybe that’s all she can handle right now. And all I want is to give her what she wants.

As long as She doesn’t read this blog, She won’t be the wiser.