"While the romantic notion of roses, candlelight dinners, being swept off my feet is wonderful, those aren't the things that really define romance, those are mood enhancers. For me, surviving the realities of life with all its pain and joy, yet still waking up in the morning knowing you wouldn't want anyone else to share the doldrums with is real romance."
While it's not about cheating in the conventional collective definition, it reminded me of the many excuses people use to explain or justify their cheating. And it reminded me of the ways we cheat ourselves in our relationships by expecting unrealistic things from our realities.
Why do we, men and women alike, often complain that not every night is date night? Do we not remember that even while bathing in that first glow of falling in love or stumbling head-long into infatuation we did not have date night every night? (And even the nights we had dates they were not always fabulous ~ but they were entertaining and broke-up the week nevertheless).
What we remember, what we long for are those transient moments, nomadic nuances, the highs (and even the exquisite lows) which punctuate the every day sentences of our lives. Passion (emotional and sexual) and its equally compelling romantic partner Longing are the desserts and snacks of our well-balanced lives. We know we cannot live on Cheetos, cheesecake and jelly beans alone.
That we need so much more to nourish and enrich our bodies we know. So why is it then that we cannot accept that our souls ~ emotional worlds or whatever space you deem appropriate to call the spheres of relationships ~ that this too needs nourishment and enrichment?
You cannot live off a relationship diet of cheesecake. You cannot keep popping those jelly beans and not expect to crash at some point.
Pretending we can is unhealthy; wishing we could makes us feel dissatisfied. Yet if we accepted the realities and considered fantasies to be the entertainment we treated ourselves too, we would not only be satisfied with real relationships but we would enjoy them ~ and ourselves ~ more too.
