Waiting for Love

All Rights Reserved 2007

Being in love happens like a thrown rock crashing into a window. You just have to deal with the energy and force it brings but for so many, being ready is not enough to overcome the anxiety of what the next step will bring. The truth is failure is as probable as success and a breakup as likely as a commitment to marriage. Still hope and even adrenaline are more powerful than stories of broken hearts and broken promises which are the more common outcomes of being in love.

Waiting to be loved is the pastime of most Americans. Whether active or passive, the behavior of men and women made no difference in their outcomes. James’s busy-bee life at Frank and Frank Law Firm, P.A. kept his mind taxed with little time to reminisce about his latest true love. He’d promised himself that she would not occupy every free thought between the mindless copying he did daily and the forty minute ride to the Pilton County Court House to file liens, summons, and suits. The forty-minute ride was more difficult to manage since the radio was always tuned in to FM 98.9 “Slow Jams”. They might as well call the station code Frustrate Me 98.9 because that’s what it felt like with each song they played. The sky seemed always bluer when he thought about Jiani. And rainy days were worst as the rain poured like tears to Luther’s soft serenades and the grey sky intensified as irreconcilable lovers part with one last kiss.

This was all too much, but James was just one of many searching souls looking for a final solid relationship, a true soul mate. And while hope guided James’s preoccupation, Tori, a long-time friend cared nothing about hope. She thrived on the way being in a new relationship made her feel. She loved the rush; she enjoyed the demand on her time and the need to get pretty and stay fresh and polish her English and stay physically toned. Intense Dating, I.D., is what Tori called it, not being in love. Intense dating is like intense training. As a player, you prepare for an athletic event the same way. You keep your whits about you, you never let your teammates see you sweat and you maintain a sense of urgency all the time. To Tori this is the only way to be in love, bring your best self to the game and know the rules…more than fifty percent of I.D.s fail and Tori’s personal record supported the statistics.
At 26 years old, Tori had seen three engagements and a throng of admirers hoping to be lovers. She was in love for the adrenaline and as long as the adrenaline poured she was in love.