Some musings on a Sunday afternoon.

I am a hopeless romantic. And yet, I hate romance movies with every fiber of my being. Why? Because they trivialize love; forcing it into awkward, gimmick-laden situations until the stories become indistinguishable from one another. No earth has been trod so well as the path of romantic comedy; the dirt will no longer keep any imprint of substance.

Also, it bothers me that the part of the romance these films focus on is inevitably the least interesting: namely, the beginning. It is impossible to love at first sight, love requires deep knowledge of another person. Love requires understanding their needs, thoughts, wants, ideas, pasts, and ideologies.

You cannot call an emotion love not honed over years, not without being familiar with the bad habits and human weaknesses of your intended. Intimacy without emotion is not intimacy, it's a prolonged one-night stand, and it's as shallow as an brief one. One night stands or short-term couplings are fine for them's that like them; I have no moral qualms with people fulfilling sexual needs, even if I myself am not interested in sex without connection. Just don't call it love, for that debases us all and belittles the scope of the thing.

The beginning of a bond is always its most tenuous. Love takes patience, faith, and the foresight of mind to reevaluate yourself and your needs in the face of cooperative communication. A bond that weakens over time is just falling to the inevitable errors in its inception, playing out its errant course. But make no mistake, the signs were there at the start.

People who are truly in love with one another have seen sides of the other person you don't see in the honeymoon stage, and borne it out. Romantic comedies (and frequently dramas) stay in safer waters, prefering the cute over the substancial. But real love is far more murky; deep, complicated, and dark.

Love grows out of life: out of stress, out of miscommunication, out of grief, tenderness, humanity and toil. True love fights, even to the death. True love is not for the weak, the selfish, the arrogant, the impatient, the greedy, and the childish. It will bear them in the short-term, but in order to keep two people happy they both have to be willing to shrug off bad habits over time; it is unfair to ask someone else to suffer anything in you that you are not willing to suffer in them. The honeymoon stage may be all well and good for the romance industry, but love requires more; it requires you to change for the better, which doesn't sell as many diamonds.

Romance is all well and good, but give me love every time. Just don't confuse the two in the public mind, because meeting cute does not happily ever after make.

Chick Flicks have it all wrong.

Love isn't long romantic weekends full of flowers, diamonds, and hand-kissing. Nor is it steamy, semi-sleazy, fervent coupling in a rainy meadow. (though I wouldn't knock it, it's quite lovely.) These things are nice, but they're transient, impractical, and ultimately unsustainable.

Love is watching your husband fall asleep with a book and a cat on his lap, while you both watch Law & Order reruns on Channel 46 at 10:00 on a Friday night. It's the way you're both exhausted from your respective days, yet still want to be in each other's company. It's the heavy leg he throws over your lap, the soft blanket covering the two of you that you both bought when you purchased the couch, and the way you can recognize the sound of his snoring in a crowded room.

It's learning that you made the right choice, all those years ago, when you decided to take a chance on a guy six years your junior, because he was cute and could use the word 'anaerobic' correctly in a sentence. It's learning that comfort doesn't equal boredom, and that your definition of freedom can widen when you meet the right person. It's letting the cynic inside of you quiet a little, because you don't have to use it to protect yourself anymore.

In the long run, it's a lot more satisfying than anything starring Kate Hudson ever will be. True love will change you, but it will always be for the better.

Thanx for the Spanx

Trite though it surely may be, and undoubtedly sloppy writing, this time of year always makes me wistful for all the things and people I am truly, truly, thankful for. I have blessings too numerous to count, confidants and loved ones galore, and a path in life that affords me not only a sense of purpose, but enough money to pay my bills and perpetuate my chosen livelihood. Not many, especially in this horrid economy, get to do what they want to do with their lives. I am lucky, a fact I thank Fate for every day.

So in the spirit of shaking things up a little, I'd like to give some thanks for events over the past year, which, while seeming highly negative on the surface, have actually enriched my life. No particulars are necessary, because the people involved don't really matter in the long run.

When you're young, your standards for friends and acquaintances are very easy to reach. Anyone who's ever watched two children bond instantly over a shared age or love of dinosaurs can attest to that. The hoops adults jump through later in life are constructed after years of easy friendships lead to false or fair-weather friends.

Eventually, your bullshit filters get just sharp enough to keep most of the detritus out. You weed out the codependents, the backstabbers, the toxic attention vampires, and all the rest of the people you outgrow on your way to becoming a grown up.

Every once in a while, though, you encounter people who slip under your radar. Hey, we're all fallible. It feels good to meet new people, and tell all your stories, and hear all their stories, and bond. And 99% of the time, it's a beautiful thing. Most people are basically good, (but don't tell anyone I told you so, I've a rep to protect) and I believe even the people who do you dirt don't set out to do it on purpose. But dirt they sometimes do, and the consequences are the same whether intentional or not.

I've met some really, really wonderful people this past year. People who I would take a bullet for, people whose kids I would protect from bears, people who I dearly and truly love. And for that I am lucky, because many people in this world go without one good friend, much less the ones I have. They know who they are.

I say this to illustrate that the rewards of close friendship come with the occasional pitfall; sometimes people misrepresent themselves, even to themselves, and it's only once you've come out on the other side and gotten some distance from the person that you can start to see the bullet you dodged by ending the friendship. Particularly if that person is batshit, head over heels, balls out swingin', looney tooney bins.

But I digress.

The reason I bring this up is not to dwell too long on the person involved, but to demonstrate the positive effects of dealing with a negative person. Chiefly of which is this: dealing only with people you like, who like you, can only tell you so much about how you handle a stressful situation. Dealing with people who have made you angry, and doing it in a manner befitting an adult, tells you much more. If you can keep your cool but still get your point across, you can count yourself a grown-up. Congratulations.

Likewise important is the fact that making a mistake in sizing up a potential friend lets you know you're not infallible, and we need those curveballs every once in a while to keep us on our toes. Psychosis doesn't just live in the stinky guy who shuffles down the street talking to Elvis: it takes many forms, and some of those might be in front of you from time to time. You don't have to let it make you bitter, because like I said before, most people are basically good. It just serves to remind you to keep an eye open every once in a while.

And finally, getting through the breakup of a friendship lets you know that no matter what happens in the blowup, the aftermath is never as bad as you think it's going to be. Frequently it ends not with a bang but a whimper. Or a sigh of relief knowing you don't have ten more crazy years in front of you with someone whose screws aren't tamped down so tight.

So here's to a new year, with new challenges and victories, peaks and valleys, and all other trite metaphors for the greased roller coaster of life. But as long as I have my boys, my health, and my boys' health, I will abide.

'Cause I'm a soldier, fool, what?!