Often described as a caused by a chemical addiction in the brain, love always seems to leave us in the sense of the grandiose feeling we get with a new love in our lives. Like a match that is struck; At first there is a great intensity as the additional fuel accelerates the fire to burn the remaining wood. Then as it burns the remaining pieces of the match the fire slowly tapers off and then leaves the charred carbon remains.

Chemically, love is caused by several hormones and proteins in the brain, oxytocin, estrogen, testosterone, one of those tonins (mela, or sara), and of course the release of endorphins for a bit of pleasure. But once oxytocin mixes with those chemicals - bonds are made between two people. Depending on the amount of chemicals released usually depends on the strength of the bond.

Of course that’s the highly technical reasoning for why people are attracted to someone, fall in love and then 2-3 months later realize that they no longer have those stong feelings and abandon the person for someone else in order to regain those same fuzzy feelings of new found love. So yes, Love is fleeting, and moreover its very similar to a crack addiction.

And in particular - there is someone I keep up with that writes periodically on her blog about her exploits and the new “boy” that she has met, and she always ends up falling in love with them, and then surprised when just as quickly as it starts, its over. This is a perfect example of how love is fleeting, and not only that about what causes attraction vs what does not.

So the question remains do we as humans, abandon the constant cycle of addiction to new found love for settling with someone because we know that its something that is supposed to happen within nature? And is the rising trend of divorce caused by people abandoning tradition and going back out in search of this elusive romantic notion that one day you’ll find someone that fills you with that “like new” feeling for the end of your days? In truth, how many people find that happiness
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I guess you could say every major life change begins at birth. Mine is no different, I was born on my mothers birthday - Halloween. Unfortunately, my memory of this birthday is missing and I only vaguely remember my childhood and the major life changes that occurred early on.

What defines a major life change? A major life change is a turning point in your life. Where you are going along just fine and then suddenly at this “X-marks-the-spot,” you start doing something completely different.

My first turning point was on my 10th birthday. Previously my birthdays had been parties and friends and cakes and pumpkin ice cream. Then we’d always always break out to go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. It was a yearly thing that I grew to enjoy. I saw some of the kids I went trick-or-treating with only once a year. But this birthday was different. There were no friends, there were no cakes, there were no trick-or-treats. There was “a limited time only” Arby’s Polor Swirl in a plastic mug, a Large Big Roast Beef Sandwich and a small fry.

My mom was trying to hold everything together as we had just come from the hospital where her father was. You see, I spent most of my 5th grade year in California where my grandfather was slowly going into alzheimers and congestive heart failure, among other things. This time he was in the hospital for the doctors to stick a 12″ needle into his chest and drain out the fluid that was building up in his lungs. No sedative. We were both amazed that he just looked at us with no pain whatsoever. A trait in our family apparently.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said. As she sipped her Pumpkin Polar Swirl. “I’m sorry that we didn’t have a real birthday for you or I this Halloween.”

“It’s okay,” I said, “It’s just a day in time. We chose to come out here and take care of him.”

My mom held back her tears.

It was at that point that I realized I was no longer going to have the same life, the same types of things happening. I had to grow up and see the world no longer as a child, but as an adult. See things like, “life will kick you when you are down.”

Days later, on November 9th, 1989 the Berlin Wall came down and marked the ending of the Cold War. A war that myself and my friends had grown up and known . We had grown up knowing only one true enemy. We played American and Russian spy games with plastic guns and walkie talkies in our back yards. Those dastardly Russians. Now the US had no other Super Power to butt heads with. Things would forever be different.

Not too much longer after that, we moved my grandfather back to Louisiana with us and I finished out the rest of my school year there. My summer was marked with a fun-filled trip with my other grandparents and cousins to New Mexico, where I tried to forget that I had grown up; I tried to go back to just being a kid. I almost succeeded, but something had changed. Something always changes when you watch your loved ones slowly wither away in front of you. My grandfather forgot who I am, where he was. etc. Over the course of the next 3 1/2 years, my grandfather lived with us until his death in my freshman year of high school.

His death marked another small turning point in my life and in my mom’s life as well. The next four years I managed to make a ton of friends, enjoy high school, learn about getting a job and getting a driver’s lisence, and take road trips with my best buds: Magik, Jeff, Justin, Cheesemoo, and Freeloader. And finally graduate into the real world, where another major turning point awaited me. And that one, I’ll save for another day.