It isn’t about being picture perfect
By Sally Friedman, Special Writer
So here it is again, Valentine’s season. And here we are, presumably all wildly romantic lovers who have perfect lives and relationships, just like in those magazine ads. We’re all thin, fit and deliriously happy.
Perhaps, in the spirit of the season, your lover will whisk you off to Paris, or send dozens of roses on a whim.
Of course, something is wrong with this picture… and those of us in real, honest-to-goodness and tested relationships know it.
The longer we’ve been in those relationships, the better we understand what it really takes to define love. And it’s not giddy whirls around a ballroom floor while you’re wearing something slinky and black, and he’s looking sensational in his tuxedo because he has those washboard abs.
My own definition of love plays out very differently.
It has to do with how “veteran” lovers understand that life is tough, even mean, and that it also can get tedious and scary. Those are the times when you need somebody to say “Everything’s going to be OK,” not necessarily because he really believes it, but because he knows it will somehow make you feel better.
Love means putting up with the cold sores, the cold feet, the cold house that never seems to heat evenly, and the chill in the air when it’s trash day and nobody remembered to put those cans out.
If you’ve been with somebody long enough, and you’ve been lucky enough, you’ll understand that nobody gives you any guarantees, and that there will be rough sailing some of the time — maybe even a lot of the time.
Kids frustrate us, bosses anger us, neighbors are sometimes noisy, cars break down, appliances fail.
There’s not always perfect harmony about why he keeps putting off the promised basement clean-up and why you still leave your sweater hanging over the arm of the kitchen chair in that way that drives him crazy.
You unfortunately threw out the last bank statement thinking it was just an empty envelope. He accidentally broke your great-grandmother’s wine glass pulling it out of the dishwasher where it shouldn’t have been in the first place. The mood is not mellow.
But this is the real stuff. The universals.
So forget those couples you think you now well who seem as perfect as those in the magazine ads. Don’t believe it.
When you’re not looking, they’re not always smiling either. They, too, worry about bills, the bad news from the plumber, the squabbles with family, and the huge one — health.
They, too, have to do battle with insurance companies, car mechanics and the guy who lets his dog run loose on their lawn.
They too have to sweat out the results of the high-tech medical tests that don’t necessarily bring good news.
But if you’re very lucky in this world — if you’ve found a life companion who actually worries when it’s raining hard and you’re out on the road, or who understands when you’re in a funk, and tries to cheer you up, even if it’s with a corny joke you’ve heard too many times, count yourself among the very fortunate.
There’s been grace in your life if you’ve had somebody to hold you close when you lost someone you loved, and couldn’t stop crying…
As relentlessly as love makes demands, it also pays extraordinary dividends to those of us who refuse to give up on it. We even hang in there through the sentences that begin with the tender words “For crying out loud!”
Let me assure you that this Valentine’s Day, my husband and I are not going to be in some chic club. Nor are we going to be off to some Caribbean island drinking pina coladas.
More likely, we’ll be doing a two-step around the kitchen as he cuts the tomatoes for the salad and I pull the meatloaf out of the oven. Later, it’ll be Alex Trebeck, “Jeopardy!,” and then dozing off surrounded by yesterday’s newspapers.
But boy, does that sound terrific in a world in which what really counts is love. The steady, sheltering kind. The kind that endures and offers a safe haven.
And in this Valentine’s season, I really hope you have that.