LO V E
Staying in love: the hard part
Love is not for the faint of heart; at least not the kind that’s got any staying power.
by John Ptacek
new, so is the ache we feel at love’s passing. We are disillusioned, but not for long. Soon we will set sail to recapture that blissful feeling. Somewhere along the line we learn
that love involves more than just feelings. We understand that for love to endure, a whole spectrum of human needs must be addressed, not just our yearning hearts. Or do we? My experience as a volunteer advice
giver for the Elder Wisdom Circle website suggests that many of us never make this leap in logic. We are grown adults making puppy love. Advice seekers accessing the the website tap into the acquired wisdom of seniors to help them navigate through life’s hard moments. They are primarily young, however seekers of all ages turn to us for guidance. Broken relationships dominate the subject lines of letters that stuff the mailbox each day. Commonly asked questions include: “How can I reclaim the early excitement of my relationship?” “How can I win back my ex?” Each belies a fundamental misunderstanding of what grown up love requires of us. For every anxious letter writer seeking our counsel, one can only imagine the number of other people in the world who are as desperate for love, as they are unequipped to accommodate it. I am hardly an expert on love, but
I have successfully completed its obstacle course. You might even say I learned a few things along the way. Like most people, I was schooled in the ways of love by passively observing adult behaviour as I grew up, and by absorbing the conventional wisdom about love emerging from TV shows,
I
had the jeweller engrave the round gold pendant with the words ‘Love, John’. A thin cross-hatched border
framing the words made them bulge with significance. I was 16. When I gave it to my 15-year-old girlfriend and she hung it around her neck, we felt as if we had entered a sacred space. We had finally liberated the word that had been caught in our throats for months, and now that it had escaped our lips we couldn’t stop saying it. Love. We were in love. We were completely, uncontrollably, deliriously in love.
20 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017
The charm of a first love is its drooling innocence. Exposed to feelings we didn’t know we had, we hardly know what to do with ourselves. We walk around with scrambled brains, blushing and giggling and saying stupid things. First loves are powered by feelings alone, spared from the tedious practicality of common sense – and what fun it is. Life is no longer dim with uncertainty. It’s coated in chocolate! That is, until a casual word or a
gesture suddenly capsizes our love boats. Just as the feeling of love was
The charm of a first love is its drooling innocence. Exposed to feelings we didn’t know we had, we hardly know what to do with ourselves.
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