As a romantic, I am constantly in search of great love. The kind of love that burns in everything I do. The kind of love that means you would give up everything for someone else because being with them is the air you breathe. That person is all you need.
Sometimes I smile at the thought of that person. Sometimes I laugh at myself. I laugh at the ridiculousness of the notion. In this world, it is ridiculous. This is not to say that it is impossible. I am not saying that it does not exist. I am beginning to say that perhaps it is not what I have thought it is.
I feel bombarded by stories of love so great that everything is sacrificed for it. Movies and stories of two people who fall in love and lose themselves in each other. The happiness they experience is the stuff of legends. Then I remember that these stories only show us the times that these people are together, creating that love. What happens two months after they have declared their love? Where are these people after the credits have rolled and the book has been closed?
Besides the obvious fact that the story has ended so the characters no longer have anything to say, we don't know where they are. We are never shown the reality of love and relationships in these stories where true love is the moral.
I do believe that real love is true love. I believe that this love is the reason that you sacrifice. I believe that this love burns in you. But some of my thoughts or feelings on love have begun to change, to realign themselves with what really happens. The love that burns when you first find it never goes away. I know this. But it is not the inferno that consumed the heart when if first sparked. It is the constant glow at the center of your life. It is the reminder that there is someone who is there and will always be there. It is the reason you spend two months salary on diamond earrings. It is the reason you clean the floors, do the laundry or cook dinner. But, we don't always think about it that way. Daily life takes our eyes away from glow, but our hearts know it is there.
My mom talks about the things my step-father does. She laughs and shrugs at the way she is annoyed by them. She scoffs at the collection of violins and guitars. She shakes her head when he starts a new hobby. And she loves all of it because it is part of him. Great love is looking past all of the little things that you shake your head at because the person behind them is who they are. Great love is knowing that even though you have your quirks and idiosyncrasies, that person still loves you. There is never a desire to change them, but to accept it all as part of the gift, which is what it is.
I am not saying that everyone we meet can be that great love because with enough work blah blah blah. I am also not saying that there is only one person that will be the one. There are so many souls out there that to even believe this is insanely depressing. But I have known enough women and have experienced enough love to know that there will always be someone else who will come along that you connect with in a way that makes you want to look past the little things. Love is fickle, though. To learn to respect that is to begin to understand it a little better.
Committed love is a decision. It is a balance between heart and mind. The heart would have you flitting off to anyone that moves you. The mind would have you turn the other way because it knows that with love there is hurt and confusion and that life requires more than just love. The balance is where you find happiness. The adage of "too much of a good thing" comes into play here. But we can't deny ourselves either.
As a single man, I am sometimes overwhelmed by the concept of being with one person for the rest of my life. When I was married, however, I didn't really think about it. Life was just life and we moved through it without that daunting thought. That thought is left at the wedding, at least it should be. It's like the initial fear of diving in the water because it is too cold. Once you are in, that fear is gone and now you are just swimming. The cold is still there, but now you have the choice to keep swimming and playing and splashing and seeing how deep you can go, or you can get out and watch the other kids laughing and living.
There are marriages where the waves are too rocky and show no sign of levelling off. If you have tried to swim and navigate, tried to work it out and it is not getting better then perhaps it is better to find the shore. There is no sense in drowning. But to get out without even trying, which I believe is an epidemic in our culture, is cowardice. I was a coward. I will never fully forgive myself. Karma has and is paying me back for my cowardice.
The people like me lost sight of what love is or maybe have never really seen it.
I got lost in the idea of love. I got lost in the stories of love. I got swept away by a dream. Love is not the tree in full bloom. Love is staying around when the leaves have left the tree.
Real love is the love you hold on to. Real love is the love you work on. Real love is that calm that settles inside you. Sometimes I know that I have had that. Sometimes I am not sure. At this point, however, all I can do is move forward and hope that it finds me again. Real love is certainty. If you have that, it is not worth just giving up on.
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