Love is not easy...

RELATIONSHIPS and marriage aren't easy. Of course, there are these sweet little daydreams like, “I found my soulmate!” “It feels like I've known him/her all my life,” “I finally found someone who knows the meaning of love,” or “He/she is my life's journey and destination!” All the honeymoon romances, courtship tenderness and dating confections... Truth is, all these simmer down or subside a bit as life turns more real than ideal, and love rails in rollercoaster rides than rolls in a hay of steamy clinches. So it's time for compromises and negotiations.

         

          Are we still going to hang out with the boys in the band for a $50 beer-money on a weekly gig, write manifestoes and grants for activist equals pro bono, smoke awesome herbs and rant about politics that didn't go our way for half a day, live in a house that doesn't exude co-existence anymore but a bohemian's lair, sustain madnesses that feed the “soul” than take on jobs that pay bills just because he/she supports and trusts? Etc etcetera.

          Are we still going to be the way we were when freedom flew like an adventuring albatross as a single individual with just morning coffee, evening wine and Herbie Hancock on turntable and on-time allegiance to “House of Cards” to worry about? Are we going to insist, “This is me! You have to accept the way I am!” or “You have to be friendly with all my friends because they are my friends!” or “I don't eat hummus and kale, I don't want those in my house” or “Don't mess with the living room, I want that Chinese imitation Picasso on that wall!” No, we can't.

          WE are two sets of truths mired in a singular vessel that floats in a turbulent sea of compromises and negotiations. Trust isn't just a word that is part of a serenade's lyricism anymore. Trust is now physically proven not pronounced. Respect isn't an awesome Aretha Franklin howl anymore. It is as simple as we are not man and woman in an enlightenment seminar or gender facts in survey board anymore. We are simply human beings under one roof. Acceptance isn't about political correctness or cultural understanding anymore. It is now about roses in a swamp or fish on land. Deal with it and work things out. 

         

More than anything else, love isn't about a Schubert sonata or a warm love poem anymore. I don't have a word for it but when I see friends and family who stick together through proverbial thick and think, storms and sunshines for many years and still managed to build and sustain stuff and things to leave their children and grandchildren, and the world at large—which is their love story and life's journey—then I know, it is possible. Very possible. But hard, very hard. I will be 55 years old this month... And in a long road trip to somewhere, when somewhere is always within me. Always inside of me. If I won't be able to find myself on the road, how am I supposed to co-exist with someone in a beautiful universe such as a home? If I can't accomplish that, then I will always be consigned on the road. Flying, running, searching until the sky caves in on me.