Oh Hello Jo — Three Love Stories
June 28, 2019
Special Projects
Words:
Jo Rosenthal
Jo Rosenthal
My mom always tells me that one of the funniest qualities she thinks I have is the fact that I love to be in love. It’s true, and I can’t deny it. Heart wrenching, gut punching, maddening love is something I feel like I was put on this earth to experience, and I’m lucky to say that I feel like I fall in love at least once a day. I also feel very lucky to say that I’ve experienced soul sucking / heartbreaking love in an absolutely serious way three times. It could have been more, but I’ve been in three serious relationships so that seems right.
The first person I fell in love with I assumed was going to be the last person. You know the song that goes “ you’re my first, my last, my everything?” That’s exactly how it was. Or so I thought. I was so stuck in a dream, when in reality it shouldn’t have been the first experience of love I was exposed to. I’ve written about it multiple times and each time I do, I feel like I have a different perspective of it. I was nineteen, it lasted two years and almost seven years later, as much pain it brought me, it gave me hope that I’d find love again. If we open ourselves up to the possibility of love, who knows what we could experience?
Being the 5’2 girl that I am, I for some reason have always been attracted to someone who is at least a foot taller than me. Miranda July says in one of her short stories that when we date or befriend someone taller than us, it is as if we are ‘going the distance’ for them. I believe that to be true because I constantly see people pursuing friendships around me with those who are in their height range. Is that why it’s been so hard for me to make friends? Because there is the possibility that there don’t seem to be as many people in my height range, and anytime I pursue a romantic relationship or friendship with someone taller than me, I really am going a distance for them? I really don’t think it’s a problem though, because to experience most things in life you have to travel some sort of distance to do that; whether it be physical or emotional. It sounds daunting when written out, but if we don’t take some sort of leap, how will we possibly be able to do something bigger than ourselves? Some say ‘look before you leap,’ but I say just jump.
Sometimes it feels like it’s really easy to get someone to like me romantically, but it feels like the most difficult thing to get that person to want to stay. I think that’s one of the reasons I chose to leave what was familiar for something that was completely unfamiliar when I moved to Greenpoint four months ago.
The second time I fell in love I was truly unprepared. The person I was dating said that they loved me less than a month after we started dating. How soon is too soon? Or is it always a good time to say ‘I love you?’ I don’t think I realized how lucky I was at the time to experience love a second time and I truly wish I could go through that second love again.
