There was a moment when a playlist was born today.  I tend create music playlists that are about an encouragement I'm in need of.  They speak to me in ways that build me up. When I no longer need that message, I will create a new list. This one was different. It wasn't about motivation.   I started a playlist a week or two ago based on a someone else's list that I fell in love with, but there were a few songs that in the last couple of days made me think of a man I have been chatting with. He shared songs with me today and I heard them with new ears.  With a perspective shift, I went from giggling to blinking away tears. This playlist is all about one person. It's about wanting music to remind me of him and manufacturing emotions close to what he makes me feel. I haven't done that since the man I was into right before the man I married. My first thought was, "what the fuck, miss? I didn't order a side of feelings with my fries."  Then it hit me in all the terrifying ways.

I've been this unfeeling, uninterested person, content in the superficial distance I kept everyone at. I had fun left swiping and going out alone. For the first time last night I wanted specific company and it was new and sticky and not my normal.

I was a faithful wife and the idea of having feelings for someone wasn't something I was interested in.  I had a first crush in 15 years in January.  It was entirely one sided and silly.  But the idea of being open to looking at someone that wasn't my husband was a huge deal. My second was in May or June.  He was sweet and fun to obsess over, but with both men, I never imagined introducing them to my kids.  They were never more than a silly distraction.  They were safe and meaningless.  The feelings I got to play in today are very different and in some ways I haven’t felt this way since high school.  There's something almost pure and so far from predatory. In being me and the ways he's okay with that, I forgot about an endgame and there isn't one. It's a free fall and I didn't realize I floated off the ground.

These feelings are everything I hoped for when I started dating in May, but the out of control feeling and the hope that came with it was a lot to process.  It was entirely unexpected. What I wanted looked like more than what this is right now and that was big.  I don't normally want more than the moment and since I started dating as a single mom, I never have imagined more than a playmate for me that would never meet my kids.  I imagined him spending time with all of us.

I mean, he's seriously beautiful but I'm not objectifying him for you because it's secondary to what he makes me feel. And there's a proprietary shift where I have no interest in sharing what I want to be only mine. There was a man running on the pier last night and I usually appreciate that, but only noticed that I didn't care about a topless man running past me until he had already passed me by.

I realized it's easy to love unconditionally when you aren't in danger of falling in world shifting love.  When the risk is a reality rather than some vague ideal, it is hard to remain present in the moment and take it for what it is.  I imagined all the ways I wanted more and the many reasons why I could never have it and the anxiety of a loss I haven't experienced was something I was already feeling the pain of. Within 3 minutes, I imagined a really great relationship was dead and as crazy as that was, it felt real and intense. (Overthinking everything intensely is a superpower. We know this by now, right?)

Love is an intense emotion.  I'm a firm believer that we make a choice to love or not love, and the feelings follow.  We make a choice to let someone in and to find the ways we are similar and how we can relate to them.  We look at who they are and how their paths fit with the ones we've walked in life. I don't remember choosing but I did at some point.

There's a free fall.  There's a moment when the emotion is too strong to fight and we fall freely, hoping that there is someone rising to meet us.  We love the feeling and can't get enough.  We want to be surrounded by love and covered in its warmth, seduced by its smell.

It's an addiction.  We will do what it takes to have the love we need.  We sacrifice our time and dreams and alter our goals.  We give and shift what we don't have to make it work.  We make love into our god and when this deity removes her favor, we are lost in the abyss of all we expected, showing us how far from the earth we've floated and the crash that is coming can be delayed but is inevitable.

I had to remind myself I was overthinking it, and missing out on the present moment of joy he was offering me by being open to my transparency.

It's a short playlist for now, but it's growing and I'm going with it, whatever this becomes. Even if it doesn't. It'll run it's course, big or small, and I will welcome being changed by it. What fun is living if I am too afraid to share my life with someone so easy to share with? Sometimes just knowing desiccated areas of your heart can be revived is enough.

• CALLmeKAT, Toxic
• Boyce Avenue, It Will Rain
• Boyce Avenue, Just Can't Get Enough
• Jasmine Thompson, Like I'm Gonna Lose You
• Lo-Fang, You're the One That I Want
• Lotte Kestner, Halo
• Ortopilot, Make You Feel My Love
• Lukas Graham, 7 Years
• Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Growing Up (feat. Ed Sheeran)
• Drake, One Dance (Feat. Wizkid & Kyla)
• Drake, Controlla