The Off Switch

Every once in a while I get a childhood flashback to something someone said that has gotten stuck in my head. I think I must have been going along as a kid, pretty oblivious until, wham, someone said something that changed my thinking and it got filed away in the "how can this be true" category. These were usually adult conversations I overheard and had to think about to make sense of.

One of these conversations I remember clearly was between my mom and dad. They were talking about one of my dad's sisters who was getting divorced for the fourth or fifth time. I remember my mom saying that my aunt "liked the falling in love part, just not the love part."

I turned that around and around in my head, thinking about what that meant and how that possibly could be true. Wasn't the falling in love part and the actual love part the same thing? How could someone fall in love and then not feel love? Was love that impermanent?

Now I'm older--much older. And I still move this conversation around in my head. How can people fall in love and then not feel love? Is it easier for some people to turn that on and off? And if there is indeed an off switch, how can I get one?