Love in the First Degree

Back in my younger, more innocent days I heard a song that really stuck with me for years. It was by Alabama and it was called “Love in the First Degree.” There is one line that says, “Now babe I’m not beggin’ for mercy. Go ahead and throw the book at me. If lovin’ you’s a crime… I know that I’m… as guilty as a man can be. I’m guilty of love in the first degree.” There are days when I can’t even remember how that felt.

This Christmas a friend said that they hoped I would find the gift of love. Well, I know what it is like to love my family. The love I have for my sons goes beyond words. I would die for them in a heartbeat. Living for them is an even greater challenge. It has never impressed me when someone says they love someone enough to die for them. That is just a onetime deal. Living for someone is lifelong commitment. That is something that I will do for my boys as long as I breathe. Loving my parents and siblings is also something I know well. Liking them sometimes is a challenge but I do always love them. Living a thousand miles away from them makes it easier in some ways and harder in others.

I understand the love of friends. Through the trials and tribulations of the past triennium those true friends have proven themselves time after time, when I was not easy to love. Loving them back is so easy that it hardly seems like it takes any effort. Good and true friends are rare and need to be appreciated and loved with the same kind of unconditionally love that they have for you. In the movie Tequila Sunrise (a good movie but an even better drink) The drug dealer Carlos said that friendship is the only choice we have. You can’t choose your family and you can’t always control what sexual chemistry leads you to do.  If you have seen the movie you may remember that is not an exact quote; but I’m trying to keep this PG.

But the last kind of love is the love that two people feel for one another. I just don’t know if I can feel that anymore. That love in the first degree has left me since my heart was broken a while back. There is something missing in me. Those who have been there know what I mean. Those who have never been there… there are no words to describe it. But I’ll try. Imagine always being hungry but nothing looks or tastes good. Imagine being thirsty but nothing will quench the thirst. The desire to love is there but it feels like that particular kind of love will not come to the surface.

I know what you’re thinking. “Don’t worry Doug. It’ll come back.” Here is the sad, sick, twisted part: Part of me doesn’t want it to come back. If you don’t love someone with all that you are and all that you have, then that person cannot throw all that away. What it really comes down to is, at this point in my life, I don’t have the ability or the desire to love like that. It really is a shame. I used to love so much and so strongly that losing that part of me is almost like dying. Now I know that I will recover from my broken heart someday. The real question is will my head ever let my heart take the chance on love in the first degree. I wish I knew the answer.