We’ve been special friends for decades now, and this COVID-19 Lockdown has invited Cupid into our midst. We’re not at the level of exchanging keys, but we seem to be playing weekend house. I have to watch my emotions more than ever now. It’s not like it had been over the years. Then, we seemed to bounce in and out o each other’s life with a hint of seriousness, more so on his part. But for a year, I have been able to keep my “Feelings” in check, more so by dating other men, but it always backfired. I always found myself comparing the men to him, never fully satisfied with the other, because I honestly thought we would finally be together one day.
I love him, and I know he loves me, but it’s not that in love feeling, but a loving bond. I feel entitled to be with him, a feeling I’m not allowed to have. As much as I proclaim to love this man, I could always move on without him. I always viewed it as me doing some time in the meantime because he was always on the go. Was I supposed to wait for this man to finally say he was ready for me when he wasn’t when we were younger??
This time around, the revolving door spun so fast that we nearly missed the time for reunification. Reconnecting didn’t go well, but we managed to salvage our bond. I thought it was finally over for us as we entered the first day of the year arguing, and it was the worst one ever. However, we were back speaking by Spring, and every visit since Life and Love during Lockdown has brought us closer. We have grown closer and become constant support during this challenging time. I experienced emotions that I had for him in the 90s. It’s an enigma how to handle these feelings, knowing that the chapter of any possibility for us to have what I wanted since I met him has been a closed chapter. I questioned if we ever started the love story that debuts in my memories of us. There are days I hype myself up to tell him, but I worry it will destroy what we have. I know he will not give all the way in, so I continue to bask in the light of “Our Now Moments.”
Decades later, he remains the only person I’ve been with in years. I shut down the honey pot after realizing I was in the relationship for all the wrong reasons. I would get into a relationship not liking the man because I feared being alone. I enjoyed the benefits of having a man even though I enjoyed being single and was not ready for the responsibility of caring for a man. But I immediately wanted to be in a loving relationship when I reunited with the love of my life. I enjoyed doing things for him, such as cooking, washing clothes, etc. It all came naturally, but I felt a little too comfortable.
Life and Love during Lockdown caused us to put precautions in place that have us tethering on what looks and feels like a committed relationship – or at the very least, boyfriend and girlfriend. It is advised that as a single [person] who desires physical and/or sexual contact, you choose one other person with whom to have physical and/or sexual contact on the condition that neither you nor they display coronavirus symptoms. And we have done just so. Before Coronavirus, we were explicit with no strings attached. We were open with each other when we went on a date with someone– a level of openness that very few share even in a committed relationship, and here we are entangled. Yes, I’m confused, but let me tell you, he’s not. He knows exactly what we are and will not ever be.
We had talks and arguments about what we were and whatnot. As he states, our current situation is due to my past actions or lack thereof. We had short bouts of what would be called a breakup for others but pulling back for us. He attempted to pull back after professing all that he was not to me after catching me slipping down the road of love. We finally had an explosive verbal confrontation over me not accepting my consequences and my audacity in believing I could still have the happily ever after we planned years ago. I have never heard this man raise his voice to this degree, and I hope I never do again. We certainly will not be one of those couples forced together by pregnancy, Covid, or the plague of love.
It felt good to have him as my leading man for the past months. But, without the Lockdown, I do not believe we would have arrived at this point, well, not now, anyway. So where does that leave us, take us? I’m thinking pretty soon, the love of my life will exit stage left, leaving me to wallow in a lake of tears of regret. He will take on another lover or, worst, a girlfriend who will live out the life I dreamed of for us. I can not imagine how I will go on without his tantalizing touch, stimulating conversations, and seeing his face, but over the years, I have managed to put the reality o him on the back burner. So, it should seem pretty easy to accept and let go, but I knew he was always coming back. Now I rely on his companionship and fun-filled dates that always end with a hot, passionate sex night. And knowing our fate weighs on my heart and the finality of that is more than I want to bear.
I read that COVID-19 has affected so many parts of our lives—even our sex life, and if that’s true, my sex craving is at an all-time high, but I am forty-five. I want to give in to the Love Spell influenced by this deadly disease, and thinking of it makes me like him even more. I have never been very ambitious about sex, and I must admit he is my Ying to my Yang. Our sex life is mindblowing, it always has been, but talking to him turns me on just as much.
Will things go back to normal? What was our normal anyway? There certainly is a void, and I suspect my attempt to fill it will leave me feeling lost without him. I will have to jump back into the dating game as if I had never left. And At this moment, I have lost all interest in other men, and he is always on my mind. What does a girl do when he’s not around?
Lockdowns are removed, and nothing holds us together, not even love anymore. So what will happen to Us? That is, if a “US” existed, and if it did, it was only because of this terrible plague of loneliness and decades of knowing each other.
Is this the beginning of the end of our Entanglement, or will our decades-old issues Untangle, allowing us to start anew?
Dat NOLA Chic 