I Found Love...And Now It's Gone

I found love. I found it two years ago. I found it online...go figure. I found it in a man I least expected. I found love after searching for it for years. I found love, and now it's gone. Well, let me rephrase that. I found love, and now HE'S gone.

I just finished watching a movie that used to make me smile. It used to make me feel warm...fuzzy...and give me hope that someday I'd find true love. That movie was Sex & The City. I adored that show and movie before. While a lot of it was senseless nonsense, its underlying message that true love always prevails was exactly what I needed to see. I watched that show every night...whether I'd seen the episodes or not. Jason thought I was insane for wasting time watching something I've seen so many times. It wasn't about the show, though. It was about the message that show carried for me. Hope, faith, and love.

Since Jason's death, I haven't watched the TV show at all. I've deleted each recorded SATC show on my DVR since May 28th. I can't stand to watch it and face that message right now. That show doesn't mean anything to me anymore. Hope, faith, and love. I had all of those things and they were ripped from my tight grip...and I couldn't do anything to stop it. I loved that show because I connected with it...before. Now...I don't. Never once did they ever deal with what I've just been through...or did they?

Tonight, I decided to sit down and watch the SATC movie. I'd only seen it twice, so I figured why not. A particular scene touched a nerve. Carrie had been left at the alter by Mr. Big...and several months had gone by. She was walking through a Duane Reed store with Miranda and explained that she still didn't believe it (him dumping her on their wedding day) had happened to her. She hadn't let go of the fact that the love she cherished was ripped from her heart in the matter of an instant. She couldn't wrap her mind around the fact that she had found the love of her life, and he was gone. She was mourning the death of love from her life. Is this so different than what I'm going through? So many of the statements she made standing in that store...I've made myself over the last three weeks.

Of course at the end of the movie, Carrie marries Mr. Big and lives happily ever after (or so we think until #2 comes out). Obviously, that's where my story takes a different turn. I won't get that happy ending with Jason. But, does that mean I'm denied a happy ending like that? For each of those women, they had one true love. If Jason was mine, at 29 years old...will I never find that again?

I had an interesting conversation on Friday with a woman who lost her husband 12 years ago to cancer. I was sharing my experiences of the last three weeks and she began to cry. I felt horrible for making her upset...but she explained that as I was talking she began to cry because she had traveled the road that I am now driving...and she felt sorry for me. She told me that even 12 years later, she still thinks of herself as married to her husband. Sure, she's moved on and is now in a new relationship...but she says her heart will always belong to her first love. She told me she felt sorry for her long-time boyfriend because he knows he'll never measure up to the man who came before him. That's a tough pill to swallow for anyone.

That got me thinking about what lies ahead in my life. It takes a special man to be able to swallow that pill. It takes a special man to know that he'll always be second-best...that he'll always play second fiddle to the man who came before him. The thought of that man made me cry. Can you imagine how hard it was for her to find someone to swallow that pill? Can you imagine how hard it will be for me to find someone like that? You might say: "Well, if she found him, so can you." Consider this: She's in a straight world...and I am not.

Many of you reading may find that comment inflammatory and upsetting, but I believe it to be true. The gay community as a whole is not one full of love. I take that back. It is full of love, love for one's self...not for a partner. I realize there are quite a few exceptions to that, but I offer you this challenge. Go to a gay bar in your area and pull 10 guys aside. Ask each one what he's looking for - love or sex. I guarantee you more than half of those men will answer sex. It's sad, but true. In the minds of many gay men...sex = love. Of the men in our informal study who said they were looking for love, I'd ask when their last relationship was...how long it lasted, and why it ended. The answer to the first part doesn't matter, but I bet the relationship only lasted a few months and ended with some form of cheating. It's sad really. It's sad that for so many gay men sex = love. So many of them won't find the truth about love until much later in their lives, and by then they've lost so much precious time to experience it.

I, on the other hand, have experienced it...and I'll never let it go. There will come a time when I have to let go of the loss I've suffered, but the love - the love I feel for Jason and the love he felt for me - will stay with me forever. However, at some point, that will provide little comfort when I'm lying in bed alone at night...longing to feel someone's arms wrapped around me. His love will provide little comfort when I long to hold a hand, kiss a mouth, or even make love. I will have to go out and find someone to make those things happen. And that's the part that scares me. It took me so long to find Jason...so many lonely nights. At least now I have him, his memory to keep me company. But, will anyone ever be good enough to share Jason's place in my heart? Will anyone even want to?

I have hope that there is someone else out there for me. I have hope that when the time is right...Jason will put that man in my life to stand in place where he can't anymore. Until then, I'll continue to comfort myself with the memories of my love, the man who - from now on - will be the measure of all men.

Until next time...

Stuart