Real love

I have a long-standing and consistently (perhaps annoyingly) vocalized disdain for girly, romantic things.  So-called "chick flicks" induce eye rolling and sarcastic commentary on the predictability of the happily-ever-after outcome.  Twilight is beyond the pale (no pun intended since it's about vampires and all.)

But since I find myself very much smitten, and in long-term love, I have to reconcile my gag reflex toward pop romance with my real amorous feelings.  And I think what it is, is that I revel in real love - the kind that is in the details of everyday interactions, moves with the ebb and flow of situations and feelings, and yields the sense of a common purpose in building something together.  It's not pretty, real love, but it is beautiful.  It results in movie-worthy moments basking on a beach in a tropical sunset, but it also persists through the times when the future of the relationship is uncertain and there is emotional distance.  The problems are real, and they don't resolve before a blissful forever.  The blissful forever and the problems have to coexist, and I don't think I'd change that.  I don't want love that is easy, I want love that is tested and true, and I am certain that's where I'm headed.  Taking the long view, it's incredibly romantic, in a much more real and human way than the fantasies I've been so dismissive of.

What I've been trying to describe reminds me of a sonnet by Shakespeare, which I'll finish with:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.