WHAT IS ROMANTIC LOVE?

It’s Valentine’s Day.  So, I will now define romantic love!

How about Love is a Drug?

• More than a metaphor, being in love really does cause a drug-induced euphoria when  “love crazed” endorphins  flood the brain with a “feel good” rush.   But we eventually suffer a rebound effect when the drug wears off and to quote from a Jackson Browne song: “your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool”.

Or do we go with the Soul-Mate idea?

• One perfect love in one perfect universe and how amazing to have found each other!  Really?  I’m a little too cynical for that concept.

Or we could examine the Psychological Shadow.

• The need to “marry our mother or father” so we can continue to heal the psychic wounds of childhood…unbeknownst to each other, of course. 

Or could love be a connection to our Best Friend?

• Someone who knows us better than we know ourselves and always has our back, until they don’t…

As for me, All of the Above.

I fell into infatuation at 17 with the high school quarterback, star pitcher, straight-A student, and all around cool guy.  I wore his class ring and told my girlfriends this was a wonderful insurance policy because he would at least have to see me one more time to get his ring back if he ever decided to break up with me.   Thus began (in my pre-feminist years) our first lifetime together.

We eventually married, that boy and I.  And before long I resented his seeming perfection, his perceived judgments, his ability to ignore my very considerable need to be reassured almost constantly of my desirability and worth.  For goodness sakes, he was acting just like my mother!!!

So we entered the rough seas of our second lifetime together… joined in a perfect storm of immaturity, curiosity, exploration, a year-long separation,  and the general craziness of the 1970’s….most of which I remember through a fog…but I know it was a time of great turmoil, some regret, and in retrospect, gratitude. 

Once that craziness was past, I was relieved when I realized we’d weathered the storms of societal and psychological upheavals and were still standing.  Side by side.  Soul Mates!   I was so glad the hard part was over! (HA!)

Then along came a baby.  Then another.  He had a demanding career. I was a stay at home mom trying to figure out what my identity was.  We had a big house and a big mortgage.  

We made commitments to committees… saving the world from nuclear holocaust, reforming the education system, electing a slew of Democrats. 

We moved through a spiritual quest that took us from Lutheranism, to Congregationalism, to Unitarian Universalism with side trips to several other isms.  

We discovered a form of personal growth work that led us to involvement in men’s and women’s circles that may have saved our marriage and our lives… and which took a lot of our time and energy.

I found a career, we faced the challenges of teenagers, and cared for aging parents.  

Thus, our third lifetime together was a blur of years that caught us up in a cyclonic swirl of busyness, exhaustion, joy, grief, and the nearly non-stop seeking of some sort of peace.  

Did we remain Soul Mates through all of this?  What is a Soul Mate anyway?  At times we barely saw each other!

And then there is now (note: circa 2010) -- a transition time. Children grown and almost launched, careers mostly behind us, downsizing the big house on the horizon…we even went to the RV show the other day.  We are discovering who we are all over again.

And what about love?   I’ve learned that the magic of “love” is no easy parlor trick.  Love is listening, supporting, forgiving, paying attention, and just being there.  It is being open to change, setting aside defensiveness and ego, talking until understanding dawns, and never losing sight of the other as a person of value, worth, and dignity.

So today I reflect on the daily mutual commitment that has resulted in the many lifetimes I share with my partner…

…filled with gratitude for the infatuation that brought us together, for the psychological growth that helped us know who are, separately and together,  for the best friend who reminds me who I am when I lose my way,  and for the soul who has joined with mine on this particular path in this particular life.

At least that's the view from here....

(This essay was presented at a 2010 Valentine's Day Service at the church I used to attend regularly.  I was asked on occasion to write and present a "personal testimonial" on the topic of the day.   This one still rings true, although six years further down the line we find ourselves savoring with even greater gratitude our 43 years and counting marriage, more committed to family and close friends over anything else, and completely in love with our granddaughters, who have come along since then, in a way neither of us would have predicted.  And so it goes....)