A Love Story, Tried and...True?

The hopeless, hapless romantic in me has always wanted a romantic love story. I wanted the intensity of a love so strong and so overwhelming that it could put the most romantic love story to shame. A love story for the ages. Growing up my favorite romantic comedy was When Harry Met Sally, and for a long time (basically my whole entire life), I fashioned my relationships after that. When my relationships fell flat one by one, however, I started to believe that those sort of love stories weren’t real. I became a tried and true cynic, denying the little princess that lives inside of me the permission to squeal with glee when Ally shrugs at Noah and runs into his arms at the end of The Notebook. And I have to say, minus a few drunken slip ups, I’ve stayed pretty true to my cynical façade. Until now…

Everybody has that one person. Whether you’ve met them already or will in the future, every single one of us has that one person that we are drawn to for some reason. They can put you through Hell, you can vow to never speak to them again, but when your phone buzzes and their number (which even though you’ve deleted from your phone, you know by heart) pops up, you have to respond. My person is the man that I wrote about earlier in the blog post, “Like Wine.” It’s funny when I read that back to myself. Although the post is raw with my truth, I can see my areas of masking, attempting to deny myself the very real love that I have for him. But in my ability to see that, I can pat myself on the back for having grown because back then, I couldn’t see it.

My ex and I did (or rather, do) have a love story. It has the romance, heartbreak, longing to be with someone but X,Y, and Z are not in place so it feels impossible—all that stuff combine to make a true love story. Have we conquered the odds yet? No. Will we? It’s too soon to tell. But I know that what I asked for my whole life, I received. Real, tangible, unrelenting, reach-for-the-stars-over-the-moon-world-series kind of love (yes, that last part is a tribute to my childhood obsession with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen circa “It Takes Two”).

I became a cynic because I never expected the kind of pain that I received from my love story. And once in pain, I never believed that I could feel the profound appreciation and joy that I now feel post-pain. So I cut myself off from romance, classifying it as an impossible ideal. I think that’s what we all do when we are given what we’ve always wanted, but it’s not gift-wrapped quite the way we anticipated it being. Unexpected pain and hardship can harden us. I’ve only ever met one person who’s never been hardened by heartbreak, who remained a true romantic until her very last day, and that was my departed best friend.

I am no longer rocked too much by pain, and I work hard not to let it devalue or trivialize the gifts (especially those that I’ve specifically asked for) that I receive. My ex and I may never get married or grow old together or write down our story and read it to each other and our kids (even though he’s suggested that we do), but at least I know that I did get the real-life intense love story that I dreamt of as a kid. And the best part of it is that something tells me it’s not quite finished yet.