Romance. It dies as we get older.
I’m not talking about love. Love lasts forever if you’re doing it right. I’m talking about the time when love is still mysterious.
Think of high-school. Over the bra, under the blouse, hoping to god your parent’s don’t walk in. When you’re exploring someone’s body with wonder. When you’re not sure how to act, how to interpret things, and you’re tearing your heart out cause you don’t know what’s going to happen next.
You lose that as you live and you learn and you grow. Confidence takes that nervousness away because you speak your mind, you share yourself, and the uncertainty is gone.
Maybe I’m just feeling old. Maybe I’m just clinging to the past in a fit of nostalgia, to the innocence of my youth when love was the only thing to worry about. Romance without practicality, boundaries, type, or class.
Maybe my more recent relationships just haven’t had that nervousness. There was always that immediate connection that leaves little room for doubt. As fiery as they were, there was no mystery.
Maybe I’m just feeling numb again.
John still comes to me with girl advice every now and then, when he’s losing sleep and he’s writing terrible, hilarious poetry. He hates the uncertainty, but I tell him to think of when he’s older and married to the same person for forty years, how much he’ll miss those feelings.
I tell him to enjoy it. To lose himself. He should be so lucky to feel so strongly about someone.
We all should at least once in our lives, before it’s too late and the romance dies.
Dude, your new layout is amazing!
You should install the OpenID plugin…I’m starting to use it instead of having separate accounts for every site.
I had had no idea that others might find my attitude toward love so strikingly different from theirs as when I wrote a publicly disclosed piece (which may have bordered on bad poetry, actually.…).
It made me see my ideas of love, while not immature, are willing to go so much further than most people’s. Not in terms of self-degradation or anything, but in a sense of constance and at a level most people seem unable to maintain anymore. It saddened me somewhat to find that out. Quixotic, as I mentioned.
I would hope for you to discover some new sense of deepened nervous monumental connection and that will just be another level.…
@trolley — Thanks! I’m considering something like OpenID, or maybe Gravatars, but I haven’t decided yet.
@xibee — You hit the nail on the head. I’ve been disappointed many times by other people’s ideas when it comes to their idea of love. It made me realize how unsatisfied I am in my relationships when someone isn’t willing to sacrifice as much as I am.
I’m hoping to find another level to connection as well. Life’s no fun when you feel like you’ve got all the answers.
Having never been in a relationship at 22 this bit’s hard for me to relate to, but I can only theoretically understand what you’re saying here. Having read your letters series though, I’d have to say I’d much rather have experienced a few things by now than still having a large amount of mystery left.
You have an interesting perspective that I haven’t considered before. You’re right, I wouldn’t trade my memories and experiences for anything, but you have the mystery that I’ll never get back. You’ll be able to approach relationships with a fresh mindset, with the glorious wonder that makes it so fun.
I’m not saying that one situation is better than the other, just that each one has it’s unique advantages.
Still playing with layout? Not sure about the left sidebar stuff…a few iterations ago was related posts at post bottom?
You had dif thrilling teen years than me. Nostalgia for what I never did, those universals of dating and drinking and dancing and love and loss. All those years married to Christ had an irretrievable cost.
Fresh entries to new things are key, I agree.
Yep, I’m still tweaking it a bit. I never had related posts until now actually, but the post meta was at the bottom.
I had never even considered those such as yourself with a religious upbringing. I never would have imagined that it mattered though; a late beginning is still a beginning.
Hi Jeff, am new here!
Didn’t know how your layout used to be like, but I’d like to compliment on this current one that I love very much! Simple, elegant and clean. Nice lines…
As for relationship, well, can’t help leaving a comment on this post. You’re mostly right I guess that romance does fizzle out, then again, when you’re at a different level with your partner, there are things that are yet to be discovered, as we all change from time to time, and when circumstances made them so.
So, it’s more of a wanting-to-discover-and-explore mentality that recreate romance within a long-lasting relationship where love is still strong I guess. haha ;)
I see what you’re trying to say, but you have to admit that it takes the right person to be so dynamic that after so many years they can still surprise you. If you can find someone like that, then I’d agree that the discover-and-explore mentality would live on.