When he first met me, I wasn’t a consideration, because I was a … foreigner. When I first met him, he wasn’t a consideration because I couldn’t pronounce his last name and I already had a boyfriend.
Nine days later, the boyfriend of six and a half years was out of the picture and for the first time I, the ever-expressive, ever-opinionated chatterbox-I discovered that words have some serious limitations.
So begins the BEST love story ever lived. It’s best, of course, because it’s our love story. It has every component of a really good love story – twists and turns, war and peace, long letters and short fuses, dazzling fireworks and all. Thus the Sock found its Monkey, the Spark found its Plug, the Type found its Writer and the Kindle found its Fire. They lived happily ever after, end of story.
This is as far as the definition of love reaches in most people’s minds. The rush of emotions, a walk on the cloud, or, as some cynics may call it a 'temporary state of insanity'. For, speaking from experience, love does make you do some crazy things we would never dream of doing otherwise. Writing poems, buying flowers in the dead of winter, abandoning our safe, carefully controlled, self-contained world and embracing some utterly Other as a vital part of our very being, putting the desires, wishes and preferences of that one above our own. Just yesterday I was my happy, content, busy me. Today I am a wreck without this long-lost soul mate who, a split second ago was a complete stranger. When, through some small token of providence I am assured of his love for me, I am blown away that cosmic forces would be so graciously inclined to pick me, this pitiful, undeserving me, and shower me with such generosity and favor!
Nobody, however, can live in a permanent state of euphoria (unless, of course, you are a drug addict or mentally ill). For, sooner or later, the flash-flood of adrenaline, dopamine, endorphin and oxytocin slowly (or abruptly) subsides. You can’t have lavish, elaborate candle-light dinners every single evening. You don’t stay up just talking all night when you have kids to take care of the next day. It’s impossible for me to look dazzling when I first wake up (or any other time, for that matter). My husband discovered that the Amazing-Sexy-Legs turns into an Incredible-Mrs-Hyde (as in Jekyll and Hyde) before she had her SECOND cup of coffee in the morning. My stunning mate is a little less of his usual Mr. Universe self before he shaves and takes a shower. And, I was shocked to learn that even Mr. Universe farts after having milk and cereal for lunch.
And so I begin to notice ever so slight a shift in my perception. I start seeing things I didn’t see before… all these big and small imperfections I was so blissfully blind to and I am at a loss. What am I supposed to do with all this new information?!!?
Suddenly I am confronted with a choice. I can choose to chase after one adrenaline-rush after another, trying to recapture or recreate the chemically-buoyed feelings of love. My OMG-keep-me-perpetually-entertained-and-happy-lest-I-die-of-boredom Botox-skin-deep culture implies there is no alternative. Much of my broken, idolatrous self gladly concedes to the allure of this course of action. If I go down that path, I discover that it is ruled by the law of diminishing returns. I need more, and more, and MORE… and my sense of discontentment and restlessness grows bigger and bigger and BIGGER. Nobody, not even my amazing Mr. Universe can measure up or compete with that kind of pressure. So, I can decide that, just as I have so hopelessly, so involuntarily fallen madly IN love, I can as easily, yet, ah so sadly – or MADly - fall OUT of love. The Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb, Croatia offers a guided tour of artifacts of such love gone sour. http://www.yorkdispatch.com/entertainment/ci_19960646 The end of that story, onto the next.
Or, I can chose to believe the vision imparted by the ‘temporary blindness’ (or, perhaps, it was a provision of an extra eye to see the possibility in the impossible?). I can receive the whole package – what makes sense to my pea-size brain and what doesn’t – and ask God to help me do the hard work of faith… the hammering out of that incredible, dazzling vision in the nooks and crannies of our lives, day-in, day-out, year in, year out, staying true to the promise when the glare of the stage lights is off and burned mac’n’cheese is on the dinner table. With good days and bad, cancers and cavities, fun and funerals, homework and yard work, the dark nights and the dark chocolate, when nobody is watching and nobody needs to know.
In that murky texture of ordinary life, love, true love settles down like snow… gently, quietly, patently, faithfully - no fanfare, no self-inflated noise… over, under, in and through, and all around… until the entire earth-bound landscape of our lives is transformed by its heavenly beauty. Growing deeper and deeper as the years go by, it transcends by light years any dazzling display conjured up by some fleeting, hormone-boosted emotion. And, once again, I am left speechless, marveling at the gracious inclination of the good Lord to pick me, this pitiful, undeserving me, and shower me with such generosity and favor. And I remember that He always saves the best for last.
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. I John 4:10
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