It almost seems like the story should always end in '...and they lived happily ever after.'
It's what we're force fed from infancy in countless times in fairy tale books and happy-go-lucky princesses with perfect lives. We move on to soap operas, teen dramas, romantic comedies and soul-mate epic novels; all coincidentally containing very minimal drama (if any), quickly resolved by some cheesy move from the guy (or gal) that required no serious angst to be gone through.
However, the reality of it is that there is no soul-mate. There is no earth-shattering, mind blowing, let's-kill-each-other-in-the-name-of-our-unique-bond love. This bullshit Hollywood puts out, this crap Jane Austen so beautifully wrote...all this nonsense that makes our heart swell with hopes and dreams, that makes us search endlessly for that one who will fill our void; it's all fantasy. Are we really that dense that we believe a guy, single imperfect human being out there will be the perfect match for us for the rest of our lives? They who are equally confused, also searching for the same things we are, also infatuated with unattainable ideals?
What we all fail to realize is that those books that feed our dreams so much, those movies that make our eyes tear up and our hearts wrinkle like prunes...they are merely a compilation of all the PERFECT ROMANTIC moments a person may experience in a lifetime with several people. How can someone go to so many lengths day in and day out to make their significant other fall in love with them OVER and freaking OVER again, with quirky original cute ideas and oh so sweet little details that sometimes take more than a whim to come up with? Shall I elaborate?
These are a few moments in my life that assured me someone was my soul-mate. Ahem. Alex was my first boyfriend, so he already had that going for him. Heh. I will never forget when we were 13 yrs old and he came down with a serious illness, having to be hospitalized for almost 2 weeks. I'd make my parents drive me up there every afternoon after school, and I'd play poker with him until 7 p.m. (visiting hours were over), sitting across from him indian-style on his bed. One day his mom's friend came to see him and asked him who I was, to which he smoothly replied with a grin on his face "my future wife." He reached over and held my hand, rubbing the back of my hand with his thumb. Even thinking about it right now makes my heart just, swell...and tear into pieces. I miss that feeling. He was not my soul-mate.
But I grew up, and I also can't seem to shake away the memory of David R. when I was 15. We met by accident, he was a cousin of some guys I used to hang out with from church. One Friday night they invited me to the movies, and he tagged along...and he was a red-head (my weakness). We ended up sitting by each other and I swear I could feel the electricity between our arms that were barely touching over the armrests. We'd lean closer, and make some stupid little remark about that god-awful movie, and he'd just linger there licking his lips. Whew let me fan myself! Eventually, he went for it and I probably had the best kiss of my life. Ever. We pretty much sucked face for the next two weeks, and every time it made me feel beautiful, sexy, breathless. Alas, all things end. Specially at that age. He was not my soul-mate.
Ryan, oh Ryan. He was 25, I was 17. We met in AOL, back when you had local chatrooms. We were both guitarists, and lived about 20 mins from each other. So one day we met at the movies, and became best friends, my own little white boy. He loved that I called him that. He was a musician, had been sober (cocaine) for 2 yrs when we met, covered in tattoos and piercings (my parents' worst nightmare) and had underground death metal shows every night almost. Everywhere we went, he always introduced me as his 'lady bird'. "This here is Yar, my lady bird", followed be a delicate kiss on my jaw. That's what I loved most, how someone so dark and seemingly cold, could treat me like a precious, fragile gift in his life. What I'll never erase from my thoughts? When I finally turned 18, I thought he had forgotten about my birthday or wasn't going to make a big deal about it. I went to his apt to play guitar, as was our usual weekday hangout routine, and while I was tuning my guitar he covered my eyes and pulled me to the kitchen. He had baked a cake and decorated it himself (yikes! erm...it was a sweet gesture), 18 pink candles on a black frosting cake, with the words "Happy 18 years you were born for me, Lady Bird." He was not my soul-mate.
Dave. Hmm. Dave. I'll make it short. I had poems. I had songs. I had letters. He was not my soul-mate.
Do you get what I'm saying? The love of one's life...what exactly is it? I'll take whatever I've had in the past, what I have now and what I'll have in the future and enjoy the good in it. The key is finding the one person you can have several of those moments with, doesn't matter if it's every day, as long as you have them. The key is finding someone who is willing to love you even though you are NOT their soul-mate, or what they expected out of real love either. Find someone who will be by your side when the laughs and good times slow down, who can sit by you quietly and not demand from you what you, yourself, cannot give him/her.
I'm not saying you have to agree with me on this, as this view only works for me at the moment. It saves me heartache. It prevents false hopes. It doesn't let me curl into myself out of maddening loneliness, and refuses to let me spend my life chasing after knights in shining armor that more than likely are assholes who wouldn't know love and happiness if it punched them in the spleen.
Ricky proposed to me on the side of a dirt road, by a trash can...
With stammering lips and insufficient sound
It's what we're force fed from infancy in countless times in fairy tale books and happy-go-lucky princesses with perfect lives. We move on to soap operas, teen dramas, romantic comedies and soul-mate epic novels; all coincidentally containing very minimal drama (if any), quickly resolved by some cheesy move from the guy (or gal) that required no serious angst to be gone through.
However, the reality of it is that there is no soul-mate. There is no earth-shattering, mind blowing, let's-kill-each-other-in-the-name-of-our-unique-bond love. This bullshit Hollywood puts out, this crap Jane Austen so beautifully wrote...all this nonsense that makes our heart swell with hopes and dreams, that makes us search endlessly for that one who will fill our void; it's all fantasy. Are we really that dense that we believe a guy, single imperfect human being out there will be the perfect match for us for the rest of our lives? They who are equally confused, also searching for the same things we are, also infatuated with unattainable ideals?
What we all fail to realize is that those books that feed our dreams so much, those movies that make our eyes tear up and our hearts wrinkle like prunes...they are merely a compilation of all the PERFECT ROMANTIC moments a person may experience in a lifetime with several people. How can someone go to so many lengths day in and day out to make their significant other fall in love with them OVER and freaking OVER again, with quirky original cute ideas and oh so sweet little details that sometimes take more than a whim to come up with? Shall I elaborate?
These are a few moments in my life that assured me someone was my soul-mate. Ahem. Alex was my first boyfriend, so he already had that going for him. Heh. I will never forget when we were 13 yrs old and he came down with a serious illness, having to be hospitalized for almost 2 weeks. I'd make my parents drive me up there every afternoon after school, and I'd play poker with him until 7 p.m. (visiting hours were over), sitting across from him indian-style on his bed. One day his mom's friend came to see him and asked him who I was, to which he smoothly replied with a grin on his face "my future wife." He reached over and held my hand, rubbing the back of my hand with his thumb. Even thinking about it right now makes my heart just, swell...and tear into pieces. I miss that feeling. He was not my soul-mate.
But I grew up, and I also can't seem to shake away the memory of David R. when I was 15. We met by accident, he was a cousin of some guys I used to hang out with from church. One Friday night they invited me to the movies, and he tagged along...and he was a red-head (my weakness). We ended up sitting by each other and I swear I could feel the electricity between our arms that were barely touching over the armrests. We'd lean closer, and make some stupid little remark about that god-awful movie, and he'd just linger there licking his lips. Whew let me fan myself! Eventually, he went for it and I probably had the best kiss of my life. Ever. We pretty much sucked face for the next two weeks, and every time it made me feel beautiful, sexy, breathless. Alas, all things end. Specially at that age. He was not my soul-mate.
Ryan, oh Ryan. He was 25, I was 17. We met in AOL, back when you had local chatrooms. We were both guitarists, and lived about 20 mins from each other. So one day we met at the movies, and became best friends, my own little white boy. He loved that I called him that. He was a musician, had been sober (cocaine) for 2 yrs when we met, covered in tattoos and piercings (my parents' worst nightmare) and had underground death metal shows every night almost. Everywhere we went, he always introduced me as his 'lady bird'. "This here is Yar, my lady bird", followed be a delicate kiss on my jaw. That's what I loved most, how someone so dark and seemingly cold, could treat me like a precious, fragile gift in his life. What I'll never erase from my thoughts? When I finally turned 18, I thought he had forgotten about my birthday or wasn't going to make a big deal about it. I went to his apt to play guitar, as was our usual weekday hangout routine, and while I was tuning my guitar he covered my eyes and pulled me to the kitchen. He had baked a cake and decorated it himself (yikes! erm...it was a sweet gesture), 18 pink candles on a black frosting cake, with the words "Happy 18 years you were born for me, Lady Bird." He was not my soul-mate.
Dave. Hmm. Dave. I'll make it short. I had poems. I had songs. I had letters. He was not my soul-mate.
Do you get what I'm saying? The love of one's life...what exactly is it? I'll take whatever I've had in the past, what I have now and what I'll have in the future and enjoy the good in it. The key is finding the one person you can have several of those moments with, doesn't matter if it's every day, as long as you have them. The key is finding someone who is willing to love you even though you are NOT their soul-mate, or what they expected out of real love either. Find someone who will be by your side when the laughs and good times slow down, who can sit by you quietly and not demand from you what you, yourself, cannot give him/her.
I'm not saying you have to agree with me on this, as this view only works for me at the moment. It saves me heartache. It prevents false hopes. It doesn't let me curl into myself out of maddening loneliness, and refuses to let me spend my life chasing after knights in shining armor that more than likely are assholes who wouldn't know love and happiness if it punched them in the spleen.
Ricky proposed to me on the side of a dirt road, by a trash can...
The Soul's Expression-
With stammering lips and insufficient sound
I strive and struggle to deliver right
That music of my nature, day and night
With dream and thought and feeling interwound
And inly answering all the senses round
With octaves of a mystic depth and height
Which step out grandly to the infinite
From the dark edges of the sensual ground.
This song of soul I struggle to outbear
Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole,
And utter all myself into the air:
But if I did it,--as the thunder-roll
Breaks its own cloud, my flesh would perish there,
Before that dread apocalypse of soul.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning
It's so funny to note how the idea of romance shifts too. Romance is, well, work. That is, it's easy to be a romantic when you're still in the early discovery phases of a relationship. It becomes more of a challenge as time passes and the mysteries are peeled away. At nearly 14 years into a marriage, romance is work. I don't mean to diminish its importance or reward, but it just doesn't often come easy at this point. But then, there's a lesson there - being with someone (in general) is no different - it takes real, concerted effort. Laziness and apathy will drive a stake right through the heart of romance and love, so be prepared to work at it if you want to keep it going.
ReplyDelete:| sigh.
ReplyDeletelove ya! And you don't have to give me any romantic gestures. i'll love you anyway!
oh trust me, there's nothing more fire inducing and fulfilling than having a dream, than searching and possibly finding that certain someone. but how can you distinguish a soul-mate from someone you feel passionate and in love with for a number of years? what if who you thought was your soul mate at the time...is no more? i'd like to think we all live in a world where everything just goes up and up, only good moments, never heartbreak and sadness, but it is not, in any manner, possible, feasible for someone to be perfect. theyre human, just like us. they will not always be the prince charming. some days they'll be Shrek. Some days they'll be Donkey, even. But without any flaws and loss of passion 100% of the time? i dont trust those odds. and while i trust my heart, and i LIKE trusting my heart, when i trust my head I end up hurting less...or maybe not even hurting less but nothing takes me by surprise. If this person means so much to you, and you think its worth fighting for and working hard for to keep the romance alive, the bond and friendship...absolutely go for it!
ReplyDeletethanx rob, amen to that. and twin, ill got a gesture right hea' for ya lady! *grabs crotch*