Lifting thoughts from OSC

For Valentine's Day last year (for full disclosure, given the subject of this post, I should probably state that I don't generally celebrate that holiday), one of the things I gave Doug was a bumper sticker that read, "My reality is better than your fairy tale".  It was a joke (though a rather serious one) that sprang from a conversation we'd had a few weeks early.  Both of us love fairy tales--we're both big fans of Disney movies, Disneyland, classic tales and the like.  But both of us have very little patience with the common habit of being overly focused on all the wrong parts of those things:  the terrible light mindedness, the tendency toward self-focus, the fanciful parts that are there for window dressing.

I had a few friends ask me about the sticker and my own somewhat blase attitude toward romance in general.  I found myself at a rare loss for words as I tried to explain it.  Or rather, the right words--I had plenty of words, but the order they were coming out in really wasn't explaining anything very well at all.  A couple of weeks ago, I was reading a post by Orson Scott Card in which he was actually talking about romantic comedy movies but got off on a bit of a side-note about romance that captured what I had been trying to say.  He wrote:  "Its simply a fact of life: No matter how much you think you're 'in love' when you get married, you just don't know what love even is until you've created a life and a family with somebody, with total commitment, year after year.  The madness of longing that we call 'romance' is only an emotional blip compared to a true, deep human connection."

I really appreciated this remark, because I have had people look at me in such a way or say something to me that made me feel like they thought my lack of obsession with romance was somehow an indictment of my femininity or my understanding of or ability to love.  Contrary to popular belief, I am not anti-romance.  I love it.  I think its charming and delightsome and fun.  I also feel that it is, in the grand scheme of things, hugely superficial.  I have long contended to these purveyors of romantic fantasy that the reason I don't focus on anniversaries and flowers and kisses in the rain is that what I have on a day to day basis is so much bigger and better than that, I have no great need for such momentary displays.

Don't get me wrong--I love unexpected flowers and intimate dates and kisses under the stars, but I have no need for them, or even really any great desire.  The moments where I find my husband irresistable, where I fall more in love with him and can't stand the thought of being separated from him, are so much more magnificent and simple than all that.  Its when he scoops up our daughter onto his lap and showers her with kisses; its when he's going full force, stomping and growling, playing "monster" with our son;  its when we're sitting together silently in the Celestial Room;  its talking til 2am again because the conversation just carried us away; its when the car breaks down 200 miles from home on Saturday night and he stays in good humor.

Mostly, though, its something I can't find adequate words for.  Its a trust, an understanding, a completeness in each other.  I've only been married for 5 years--I know a lot of people who have a lot more of it and understand it a lot better than I do.  But I do understand that its something that isn't and can't be found in rose petals scattered across the bed or well-choreographed dates, no matter how much fun those things may be.