Devotion [h.s]

308

3 Months Later

Like I said, Amelia Adams and I were a thriller— not just a love story. She is the mother of my child, the reason I'm alive, and the rock of my life. Amelia has taught me so many things in these past few years then things I read in books my entire life. I had knowledge on so many things that were written in articles, novels and textbooks— but I never learned how to love. I didn't know what it felt like, I didn't know where you found it, and I didn't even know what it meant. I remember trying to find a textbook about it, but nothing gave me instructions on what it was.

To this day, I still don't know what the definition was of love—but that's because there's so many different professional statements about it.

–an intense feeling of deep affection.

–a great interest and pleasure in something.

–feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone.

–a personified figure of love, often represented as Cupid.

These are what I spent my life replaying in my head when I tried to figure out love and what the big fuss about all of it was. The back of my mind always had these four contrasted sentences playing on repeat to draw an image of something that didn't make sense to me.

These definitions felt like lies—jokes even.

I used to kill people and it was considered a pleasure I guess—does that make it love?

I used to have sex with a lot of nameless girls I had sexual attachments to—was that love?

No—because even though I never felt love, I knew that those things weren't it. I couldn't even figure out how to love something, let alone a someone. In my mind I came to the harsh reality that if I ever actually loved someone, I would need to know the exact true definition of it.

Because having a great interest or pleasure in something, doesn't always mean you love it. It's just the mindless cards you were handed and adapted to in life. I adapted to murder so much that it gave me a thrill, it wasn't what I always dreamed of doing. I made use of the cards I was delt because that was life in a nutshell.

Maybe if my upbringing was different, I would've gotten to really do what I love from the start. Maybe if I made better choices, I would've loved myself sooner.

But that's the card game, don't you see it?

To me, life is an assortment of cards ready to be played in any point of time. Sometimes you get a shitty hand but it's what you do with is what really counts. I never allowed love into my life because of the cards given to me, I made up this huge scheme in my head that in life you are a beggar or a chooser and that's it. You don't want hurt then you don't let yourself fall in love.