This thread got me thinking.
How many times have I been 'in love'?
Christine Willy (I kid you not) cute as a button in a Shirley Temple'ish way and of about the right vintage - were talking 48 years ago, I was seven, it is a testiment to how much I was 'in love' that I remember her name and can see her playing in the street outside her house.
The girl on the bus. My first job, I saw her most days. We smiled, flirted, I never discovered her name but managed to make absolute fool of myself by calling the department store where she worked and persuading the switchboard operator to find this girl whose name I didn't know and could only describe in glowing terms. We met outside the store, me with a bunch of flowers, she with a escort of co-workers who applauded my idiocy. We didn't hit it off - it was love for the eyes only.
My first serious (and sexual girlfriend - read Joy in my sig). The pain of that relationship sticks to me like a glue and though she broke my heart, several times, barely a day passes when I don't remember to pleasure and laughter and the shear suffocating exuberance of the years we spent learning how to love and how to die.
My darling wife who suffers my foolishness, my restlessness and supports me in my madcap ambitions. She rescued me and made my life complete. We've grown together and have found a dish in which we both fit. It's no longer as exciting or spontaneous as it used to be but we've been together thirty odd years and we have no intention of changing anything. We've recast ourselves several times, by consent and agreement, and will do the same again in the next year if everything goes as we wish.
As for the pain of love, the hurt of love breaking down, you can't avoid it if it chooses you. Take the good, cherish it, be thankful for the gift of love, it is the only way to love another.
I don't know whether this helps anyone other than me.
How many times have I been 'in love'?
Christine Willy (I kid you not) cute as a button in a Shirley Temple'ish way and of about the right vintage - were talking 48 years ago, I was seven, it is a testiment to how much I was 'in love' that I remember her name and can see her playing in the street outside her house.
The girl on the bus. My first job, I saw her most days. We smiled, flirted, I never discovered her name but managed to make absolute fool of myself by calling the department store where she worked and persuading the switchboard operator to find this girl whose name I didn't know and could only describe in glowing terms. We met outside the store, me with a bunch of flowers, she with a escort of co-workers who applauded my idiocy. We didn't hit it off - it was love for the eyes only.
My first serious (and sexual girlfriend - read Joy in my sig). The pain of that relationship sticks to me like a glue and though she broke my heart, several times, barely a day passes when I don't remember to pleasure and laughter and the shear suffocating exuberance of the years we spent learning how to love and how to die.
My darling wife who suffers my foolishness, my restlessness and supports me in my madcap ambitions. She rescued me and made my life complete. We've grown together and have found a dish in which we both fit. It's no longer as exciting or spontaneous as it used to be but we've been together thirty odd years and we have no intention of changing anything. We've recast ourselves several times, by consent and agreement, and will do the same again in the next year if everything goes as we wish.
As for the pain of love, the hurt of love breaking down, you can't avoid it if it chooses you. Take the good, cherish it, be thankful for the gift of love, it is the only way to love another.
I don't know whether this helps anyone other than me.
)
