The other day a friend asked what my least favorite organ is and although I felt I was betraying myself to dislike any of my organs (they do a good job), the choice is easy. My least favorite organ is the stomach - no contest there, and I hate the whole digestive tract. I hate the sounds it makes, the run-to-the-restroom consequences when something inside goes wrong, the burps, the gulps, and the sound of people eating.
I know the digestive tract is necessary. I know that every person has one - though some digestive tracts are missing parts and some are noisier than others. I know food is good, and I love eating. But all the internal devices and chemicals involved with processing that food are just so repulsive to me. And this is all irrational, I know, but irrationality hardly matters when someone coughs near me and I immediately pray they aren't going to be sick.
With all that in mind - although it may be silly, I like to think my ability to tolerate the sounds of another person eating and digesting is positively correlated with how much I love them. There are exceptions to this theory, of course. Sometimes people are just quiet eaters and Hallie, my very best friend, has never burped before. But it's hard to deny that the situation is so much worse when someone you don't love is smacking their food, burping the alphabet, or telling you they might be sick.
It's strange how when you love someone, you learn to love everything about them - even the sounds their body makes as they eat food. You can share meals with that person, say "okay" without feeling strange when they say they're going to use the restroom, and know what to do when their belly acts funny. I know people often talk about the larger side-effects of love: the sacrifices, the weddings, the tears, the "based on a true story" Lifetime movies. But for me, although it may still be silly, the ability to be around a digestive system other than my own will always be a sure sign that - in the words of Don Williams, "it must be love, oh, it must be love."
The freedom to share food isn't all you become attached to, though. With time, you feel connected to their favorite songs, their t-shirt collection, the pictures of you together, all your memories with them. And you feel connected to the person you love as a whole - to them being greater than the sum of their parts. You learn how to know what they feel without them saying so. If they love you any less or more, you can tell from microscopic details in the way they look at you or speak to you.
And then sometimes something horrible happens. And whenever something horrible happens, it's hard to stop seeing love as terminal and useless. Once you get used to someone - their kisses, sneezes, hiccups, bellyaches, voices, laughter, eyes, smile and even their burps - once you love all those things about a person, it's hard to see the point in starting over new. You'd have to learn the meaning in another person's facial expressions, figure out how to know what they're feeling by the way they move. And what if you couldn't love another person so much? What if you couldn't bear the sound of a new person's hiccups, or what if you never guessed their feelings right?
Eventually, though, love will seem worthwhile. We'll all get lonely enough to want to worry with it again, and it's like Alvy Singer said in Annie Hall - we keep going through relationships despite their absurdity because most of us, uh, we need the eggs. I'm trying to keep this in mind right now. Even if something horrible happens, and even if I tell myself I'll never love again because love is plum stupid, I'm sure it'll happen. I'm sure I'll need the eggs, and the presence of another - digestive tract and all - again.
(Sorry for my incorrect usage of plural pronouns and perpetual switching from first to second person.)
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