I'm Lindsay Ferrier, a Nashville writer with a passion for family travel, exploring Tennessee, and raising kids without losing my mind in the process. This is where I share my discoveries, along with occasional deep thoughts, pop culture tangents and a sprinkling of snark. Want to get in touch? Use the CONTACT form at the top of the page.
March 31, 2010
>As a girl, I was a total, diehard romantic.
Spurred on by what I could glean from my grandmother’s Grace Livingston Hill Christian romance novels, (with a little Victoria Holt from the library thrown in for good measure), I became convinced that it was only a matter of time before my prince came riding in out of nowhere and swept me off my feet- and there were a lot of potential princes to weed through at school in order to find him. As I waited for his appearance, I spent my time memorizing passages from Romeo and Juliet and reciting them plaintively in front of the mirror. I wrote pages and pages of awful love poetry in my journals. I woke each morning at 5:15 am to shower, artfully apply my Wet n’ Wild makeup, and scrunch my perm to mesmerizingly seductive heights. I always had a boyfriend or love interest, but my idea of love had nothing to do with physical contact- Instead, it was totally inspired by things I’d read about King Arthur’s court and by my gigantic anthology of Victorian poetry and by my mom’s 45-speed records from the 1950s.
I look back now and see that what I was pursuing wasn’t really love at all- it was infatuation- the moony, swoony, giddy feeling that’s the subject of so many songs and poems and books and movies.
I would feel infatuation from time to time, but it never lasted more than a few weeks. Eventually, I grew up and moved to Nashville, where I met a man at work. And from the moment that he leaned over my cubicle and began making fun of me, I was smitten. Smitten! Infatuation times TEN! I would literally break out into hives when we talked during those early weeks and later, after we’d started dating, we’d go out with a group of people, look into each others’ eyes, and realize after what seemed like a few minutes that it was four in the morning and everyone else had left a long time ago.
I married the man who gave me hives and made time fly and my quest for constant infatuation ended. I had something even better, something that promised to spread itself out over a lifetime. But for someone who’s spent her whole life reveling in the prospect of that fluttery, heart-thumping feeling, you’d think it would be tough to say goodbye to infatuation for good.
Why haven’t I missed it? Well, for one thing, my husband and I are close. Really close. We spend all of our free time together, and we have lots of date nights, both out on the town and at home, after the kids have gone to bed. But there’s more to it than that.
I actually feel infatuation all the time. And the objects of my infatuation… um… have nothing to do with Hubs.
I realized this as I stood in my kitchen the other day, thinking about my newest infatuation and sighing like a moonstruck teenager. My infatuation was sooooo wonderful. I couldn’t stop playing our encounters over and over again in my head. My infatuation made life so much more perfect and beautiful. I really thought I might be in…
LOVE.
With…
a song.
Yes. A song.
I listen to a lot of music. And every few months, if I’m lucky, I’ll happen across a new song with chords that strike to my very soul…. With lyrics that seem to echo my deepest, most private emotions… With an angelic voice so sweet that I’m completely…
infatuated.
I’ll play the song again and again for a week or two, wherever I happen to be. My heart will flip flop when I hear it. Butterflies will dance in my stomach. It’s infatuation, all right, hardcore, and while I’ll always have a lasting affection for the tune, my infatuation with it only lasts for a week or two.
What can I say? Others have affairs to get that ooey-gooey feeling again. I have… my music.
What about you? Does your heart still pound over something that has nothing to do with your spouse?
Or am I alone here?
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