What do you Call the Female Equivelant of Pussy Whipped?

I think i’m getting to the age where every time you learn something new you realize just how little you know. And how much less you knew yesterday and the day before…

I always speak with authority on every topic I discuss. It’s a slightly annoying character trait that my ex-husband especially loathed about me, but it is not a dishonest one – the conviction I speak with does stems from the fact that I do actually believe the things I say.

For the last two months though I have gone completely blank! And as much as I try to explain this particular situation I find myself in I just can’t. I can’t say “it’s like this because of that” – my words have deserted me in the most bizarre case of writer’s block that I have ever experienced.  All I can do is stare open-mouthed like an ape and shake my head in confusion.

But let me try and explain myself a little…because that is what I do. I hash things out on paper and then they make sense a bit better. Right?

I have no idea…

When it comes to love and relationships I have kind of been around the block a little. Not the Sex and the City kind of around the block, but I’ve been through the various different kinds of experiences that all add up to a well-rounded love life I guess. I’ve been through the high school first love heartbreak. And the post high school heartbreak. I’ve been through relationships where I thought I cared for someone one minute and then couldn’t stand to have them so much as touch me the next. I have cheated and been cheated on. I have used the L word without meaning it and I have refrained from using it when I did.I have done the holiday fling thing. I have liked two guys at once. I have done the long distance thing. I have kissed a girl and meant it. I’ve been married. And then separated. And then reunited. And then divorced. And then I conceived a child within the framework of what I thought would be my very last relationship and I was devastatingly wrong.

And yet NONE of these experiences ever prepared me for the realization that up until now I have never ever really been in love…

Now this seems rather harsh because saying so makes it sound like I am lessening the relevance of some pretty damn significant relationships – which I promise I am not doing at all. They counted. All of them. And they counted a lot.

Billy I loved in that sweet, innocent change-your-music-taste-for-the-boy-you-like kind of way. I never got the hang of being able to hold any sort of conversation without linking it back to him. Kind of embarrassing. He was the first boy to ever tell me I looked pretty.

David I loved in safe-haven kind of way. He was the shelter from the big bad world outside my door. And he made me watch the sunset. And he played the piano to me over the phone. And he had me seriously considering moving to the States.

Michael I married. Obviously I don’t need to say much here because you don’t do that unless there are pretty intense feelings involved!

And Frankie I can’t really explain so much because I don’t quite understand it myself. But he was relevant. We had a kid together. And it started out as a good thing even though it didn’t end that way.

So really none of these relationships were irrelevant or inconsequential in the least. And yet someone walked into my life two months ago and somehow every hang up, every experience, every stolen kiss, every broken promise, every disappointment and every moment of elation all blended into one blur of experience from which I am suddenly able to draw nothing.

I’m so crazy head-over-heels in love that I don’t know what to do with myself! I’ve been forced to resort to lame cliches and humming cheesy love songs! No no no!!! This is NOT happening! Right? The cynical, ever-underwhelmed, vibrant, independent lover-of-the-single-life, newly-reformed and totally ready to take on life completely ON HER OWN TERMS woman cannot POSSIBLY be sitting here and telling you that her newfound starry-eyed madness has gotten so supremely ridiculous that the most she gets done on any given day has to do with planning for the next time she sees the object of her affection. Right? No ways! It CAN’T be!!

And yet it is…

Next thing you know I’ll be trying to decide between Lifehouse and Michael Buble for the opening dance at our wedding. No no no Nadine! Bad girl!! You see?! CLICHES!

But there are just all these things! All these overwhelming senses and sparkles and tingles and the giddiness and the inability to stop smiling and the excitement every single time I get a message from him – even when we’re sitting in the same room and are only sending each other messages so as not to bother the people who are watching a movie!

And where did all the defenses go? The sanity? The stability? The USEFULNESS??

Holy crap! And the words? Could someone go and fetch THOSE for me please? Soon? BEFORE I go insane? The whole being a writer who can’t write thing is really bad for the ego!

So yes. I am slightly embarrassed to report that basically I have gone mad. And I was hoping to translate said madness into some sort of coherent explanation…

Clearly it’s not working…