The Mythical and Magical "True Love"
With Valentine’s Day a few days
behind us, I am taking the time to reflect on Love. You see, I am a divorced
mother who is actively dating. I was married for over a decade, so the former "lovers" or "loves" that I had prior to my marriage seem to be distant memories of mixed
emotions and blurred recollections. I always credit myself with having had at
least two true loves though. Sadly, neither was my ex-husband. I've put him in
another category now since we remain friends, and we collectively came to the
realization that we probably had no business marrying each other in the first place. My ex now has an elevated role of best friend, companion, and our children’s father. My love
for him is unconditional, yet it never crossed the threshold that would make me
feel the kind of way that you see depicted in the most memorable romantic
movies. Those where the two beautiful, star-crossed lovers are risking everything to be
with their one true love. Cue the passionate kissing couple getting rained on...that scene is forever etched in my mind thanks to the movie The Notebook; another example is the iconic line bravely spoken by a closeted gay man from Brokeback Mountain: “I wish I knew how to quit you.”
My first true love made me crazy with feelings
of wanting to share my life and a lifetime with him. For two years while we
were on-and-off dating, he was all I wanted, all I imagined my life being for, and
I was willing to sacrifice almost anything to be with him. And sex with him
was amazing. So when he died unexpectedly, I was devastated. I resolved that he
was my one and only true love, and I held every other lover after him to this
standard of an idealistic romantic love that my first true love unintended to define for me. I never thought in a million years that I
would feel that kind of love again. And all those butterflies and tingly moments happened over twenty years ago.
After the botched marriage to my
loving and caring rebound guy, I moseyed along with my life proudly displaying my
tattered failed marriage scars with surprisingly well-adjusted kids in tow. Was
I on a path looking for true love? Hell-to-the-NO. When I say "true love", I am
defining it as this: a passionate love arrived at seemingly by chance, but often
predestined, when two people open themselves up completely to the idea of authentically
feeling every emotion, every fear, limitation, vulnerability, pleasure and
wonder that's involved with loving someone so deeply and unconditionally that they are
willing to sacrifice for each other and do whatever it takes to mesh their happiness. I met this kind of love--all 270 pounds of him--unexpectedly
in a hardware store in the middle of nowhere.
Like my first true love, I remember
every gesture he made, what he had on, and how, on the day that we met, looking
at him made me feel enchanted and expectant as if I somehow already knew him.
Over a year into the rockiest intimate relationship of my life, I had never
been so sexually fulfilled and so hooked on a man. He was like this drug that I
had to have at least three times a week. We couldn’t get enough of each other.
I was content with just thinking about how to make him happy all the days of our lives. I
took surprising risks just to be with him. In fact, our serendipitous meeting
would not have happened had I not taken a gamble to do something outside of
what had become my normal routine. I was in that particular place at that prescribed moment
in time, and we met because I dared to do something bold and courageous. It was
like the Universe was determined to bring us together. Even in the beginning of
our relationship, when I hesitated and wanted to haphazardly end it before it
began, Fate brought us back together in a crowded supermarket on the other side
of town.
Sex with my second true love was
very gratifying, and it gave me ecstasy and excitement over and over again. Our intimacy elevated
me to a higher level in my understanding of love and relationships. Being with
my second true love made me contemplate my life in a way that established purpose and
truth. It was like we were designed for one another before we ever existed as
man and woman, and as lovers, on this physical earth. The ebb and flow of our
relationship challenged our conventional beliefs and behaviors to bring us
closer together with more acceptance of one another’s shortcomings and
superficial expectations. I loved him on a spiritual level that surpassed all
logic and emotions that I had known and felt before he came along. His love awakened
things in me that once lay dormant and starved of life; and I was more creative and more confident
than I had ever been before. As our feelings took on a seemingly separate life of their own and grew into what
I fondly call “Our Love,” I became obsessed with figuring out how this
happened. How was it possible to have another true love come into my life? And
all of this during my mid-life crisis?
I often think that the love my second true love and I created is separate from us but links us together in
a bond that is indestructible… surely "Our Love" does not die, but lives forever
to recreate itself, revitalized and blossoming for all Eternity. I think that love is
a powerful force that creates worlds, and it alone can do things that confound
the human mind. For the record I also loosely credit Jesus, the man that
walked the Earth two thousand years ago, as being a "true love" of mine, as well
as the coffee chain Starbucks. Kidding...not kidding. So for all intents and purposes
my blogs will mention my two human male lovers as my Earthly true loves.
My second true love is someone
who will always have a place in my heart as we share a "Ribbon in the Sky.". Yet, the timing for our union proved to be
challenging and we have since parted ways; though I still have hope that Our
Love will rediscover its life and bring us willingly back together to submit to
It forever in this current lifetime. In the meantime, I am enjoying fun-loving
relationships with interesting people who add to the lovely light and purpose
of my love affair with Life.
No comments:
Post a Comment