Crazy Love

I guess I didn't realize there was any other kind until I got to high school and had friends falling in things like puppy love.

But the way the only people for Jack Kerouac are "the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww,'" the only kind of love for me is the eats you from the inside out it's such a monster love.

It's the how desperately seeking to demonstrate just how fully you appreciate someone, you go to the ends of the Earth to try and surprise them with the simplest gesture that says "I've been listening" to you with your birthday gift love, and the how even though you really want that last bite you'll always say sure you can have my pizza crust so you can dunk it in vinegar even though I think that's disgusting love, the kind that makes you spontaneously combust into a big ball of tears in the balcony of church on Christmas Eve when you realize you're never ever ever going to be truly lonely because you've got best friends built into your bloodline and standing beside you holding your hands during the Our Father and making you laugh throughout the, overcrowded mind you, drawn-out 5:30 mass, and that makes you still sort of partial to doing laundry at home under the guise of it being cheaper but truthfully in the hopes that you'll score a home cooked meal and some company, it's the "have a little faith in me" and "you can't live my life for me, even if you're right you probably would do a darn good job doing so, sis" love, and the kind that fills your heart so full of so many people worth's emotions you're not sure it can contain it or that the little house you love to hate and hate to love and curse buying but couldn't have been more proud of to move in to with its dishwasher and sprinkler system and stainless steel appliances and 96inch long kitchen table can contain it. It's the kind my sorellina's talking about when her facebook status says she loves her crazy ass Italian family and the kind my Irish grandfather exhibits when he's offended by the lack of acknowledgement with this being the week of St Paddy's and all.

It's "a mistake or did He do it to us on purpose" kind of, insufferable, intolerable, irresistable, gravitationally pulled and driven simultaneously, and extreme, dramatic, and serene and simplistic beyond any sense of rationality sort of love.

Crazy love is an investment. It's a responsibility. It's a blessing, a curse, a charge, and an unconditional, surely unmeasurable, irreplaceable element - I might even go so far as to say life force, but then I know I'd be sounding trippier than I do already.

To me though, it's seriously the only kind worth holding onto, believing in or fighting for.

So there you have it. That's what I learned when I visited Boston this past weekend. It's a regular old wonderful life.

As of March 20th my mother will be 48 and feeling great. It's a new dawn, it's a new day... Spring's en route, and love is in the air.