...and then I find myself, head in my hands, listening to old songs and crying for the worst of all reasons: because I love too much.

Aretha Franklin - "Son Of A Preacher Man". No, the words don't exactly mean much to me personally... but the feeling behind them, yeah, that hits deep. All the wrong people, at all the wrong moments, they can reach me and teach me and leave me broken without even realizing it. I know that I'm not the center of everything - I may act as if I was sometimes, but I DO know better. However, that doesn't stop me from being hurt by other peoples' actions... it only makes it worse, because I know that to those people, their actions don't even involve me. Shouldn't affect me. They aren't responsible, in their minds, for causing me pain.

Depression. It'll pass. As I just said to yet another person I should know better than to love. How many times has he hurt me? How many times has he left me crying, not because he meant to, not because he tried to, but simply because he did something that to him seemed right and natural... and to me, seemed wrong? It's all about perception, and I perceive too much.

"The only one who could ever reach me was the son of a preacher man... the only boy who could ever teach me was the son of a preacher man..."

I remember a preacher's son I knew for a while. I remember watching him french-inhale and being far too impressed. I remember wondering what it would be like to kiss him, and deciding it wasn't really worth finding out. I remember thinking that I could love him... and NOT doing so. In all the years I've known people, I think he is the only person I've decided not to love, still been around long-term and/or often, and had it stick. The only one.

I love too easily.

Torian says:
Why do you think you love too much?

Jax In Furs says:
Because I don't have enough time for the people I love. Because the more I love them, the easier it is for them to hurt me, often without them even realizing they are doing so. Because I love more than I am loved.

That wraps it up pretty neatly, actually.

Torian says:
I don't think you love too much. I think you have too much expectations of people, and the way they maybe should love you. That's maybe why you get hurt.

Jax In Furs says:
*shrugs* Likely. I expect them NOT to hurt me. I expect them to love me the way I love them. It's not fair to them, to have me expecting things, and blaming them if they don't live up to them.

Jax In Furs says:
Although I don't generally expect those things of people who don't insist that they love me... *wry grin* ...if they would just stop falling in love their way, I'd stop expecting love my way. Really. Honest...

Jax In Furs says:
*doesn't believe herself in the slightest*

He knows me better than I know myself, sometimes. Some days it worries me. Some days it's comforting. Some days it's annoying, and some days it's helpful. Most of the time, it's a bit scary. It's why I want him collared and owned - it takes away a bit of the fear.

I had a long conversation with Kadin about this... *rubs her eyes* ...he said something I'd never expected to hear. I don't know if I believe it or not - sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, I guess. He said that it's ok for me to need things and expect things. It's ok for me to own him, to hurt him. It's ok, not because of some divine right, not because I'm stronger or because he deserves it... no, it's ok because it makes him happier than it makes him sad, because it makes me feel safe and happy, because it's what I need. It's ok to need. He told me it's ok that I am me.

Nobody says that to me. Grr, sometimes, comes close. She says she likes me the way I am. Heard that one before. Yeah. Nice. But... *shrugs* I've hurt Kadin so badly, sometimes. I've frightened him, I've made him cry, I've left him so terrified that all he can do is curl up with his head buried in my chest and sob out his fear and his pain and beg me to hold him.

And I do hold him. That's when I love him more than anything else, more than anyONE else... right then, when I am the one who caused his tears and still, he holds to me to save him and help him. Still, he trusts me to make it better.

Torian says:
I don't understand how someone can fall in love with so many people. But of course from my point of view, and my walls, it's obvious that I don't.

Jax In Furs says:
It's surprisingly easy, actually... just like falling in love with one person. YOu see all these wonderful things about someone, you like the way you feel in their company, you like who they are and what they believe and how they behave... you find yourself happier when they are around, you realize that when they aren't around, life just isn't the same...

Jax In Furs says:
...and even if you already love someone else, it doesn't make how much you care for this new person or want them or need them seem any less important.

...where you go when you're gone...

Sometimes, loving a lot of people is hectic and hellish and confusing, yes. Picture a parent with several children: they love all of their kids equally, or damned close... they don't want to loose any of them... but they don't always have time for ALL of them at once, they can't do everything for each of them all the time, they have to balance their time between them sometimes.

That's a lot of what this is like. Partially because I tend to 'mother' my boys, getting protective and wanting to take care of them. Partially because really, I DO love them all, no matter how much I try to turn it off. It's not something I chose - often I fought it. It's not something I even WANT, with a couple of them... I would be better off if I didn't love them. But it's there, and it's real, and it's part of who I am.

It's not who I want to be.

Not at the moment anyway, although as always, this is subject to change. But right now I wish that there was some way for me to set a limit on who I cared about. Two or three, tops, maybe. That would be nice and simple. Not this complicated dance of emotion and hormones that leaves me so damned dizzy and frustrated.

If I could narrow down the field, who would I choose?

Caleb. He's my first, my truest Fiance', I would move heaven and earth for him. Hell, I'm moving to California for him. He amazes me... and I know that of all the people I love, he is most able to handle ME, all of me, everything I am and everything I can't or won't be. He knows me, and he loves me anyway, and that is a rare gift indeed.

Kadin. He's my First slave, and likely always will be. Young, yes... but honest, and determined, and the greatest prize I have ever laid claim to. In the years - yes, it is YEARS now, and I am sometimes stunned by that - that I have owned him, he has never, NEVER, given me cause to regret collaring him and laying claim to him and owning him and loving him. Never. I can't say that for anyone else I have ever loved, although Caleb comes damned close.

After that... after that, it gets vague. Torian is the most likely, yes... but at the same time the most distant, the least physically present. Rhett is the closest in some ways, and certainly a wonderful balance to kadin... but at the same time BECAUSE of that contrast, I still have a hard time trusting and loving him. Al-X? I do still love him, you know. I don't think it will ever really stop. I don't know why, other than that he was the first, in so many ways, for me. Dai... so far, too, and... gods, what he does to me without knowing, without meaning to... it's not his fault, but still. And not Spike, I know that much. I'd go nuts and slit his throat, or he'd slit mine. He's not my type, in a very literal and BDSM-related sense. He'd never beg, and I won't ever really love any man who won't.

I mean that, by the way. I will NEVER truly love someone who I have not seen submit, however briefly, to me. I can't trust them, I can't care for them, I sure as hell have no reason to take care of them or protect them. Half of me, half of everything I am, if not more, is tied up in the NEED to see the person I love crouched at my feet, looking up, in tears as often as not. That is ME.

Yes, there is a lot more to me than that. But that is a part that is very strong, very complete, and NOT to be ignored... not if you want me, not if you love me, not if you want me to love you in turn.

...I was having a conversation with Torian (in case you hadn't noticed) and it just went sour. Some things, I don't like thinking about.

I don't like them, even if they are the right thing, the good thing, the way things should be. They still aren't fair, not to me.

I don't want to be the mother any more. I want to be the helpless girl that someone takes care of. I want that. I don't want to be strong any more.