Young teen love was weird for me.

And awkward.

I had a slew of sisters growing up in a tight household. I was surrounded by teens raging female hormones and a mother with an overly sensitive nervous system. So in my small prepubescent reality women were quite the handful. I spent most of my teen life with only my mother as my roommate. We bonded over tv shows, old westerns with popcorn and a tall glass of whole milk. I got front row seats to unexplained pre and big shows of menopause. I’d watch my mom go off the rails sometimes while I hid behind an X men comic book. Revolving doors of sisters coming back home to stay awhile after splits and divorces. My family has hosted quite a few of those. Most of my childhood I was made to believe marriage was temporary at best.

It was definitely volatile.

I had my fair share of crushes in middle school but holy shit by golly gee my ass was not about to go talk to one of them . I was more awkward looking than I’d ever been. Slow action puberty left me looking like Ichabod Crane with a mullet, crustache and hand me down clothes. I’d write love letters to some classmates crushes that would never ever see them. A couple of them I’m still friends with on Facebook.

Hi yall

Who are they? Yeah fuck off you’ll never know.

I ogled at high school girls like a psychopath while I was tortured by my pubertuous hormones. Yeah I just created a word shut up. The opposite sex terrified me. Let’s be honest it still does at times. I spend most of my days making sure I don’t piss my wife off.

I asked my first date to my ‘88 high school prom. She didn’t go to my school she went to Rock Hill. She was a cousin of a high school friend. I held my rotary phone with a 20 foot cord attached to the wall in the hallway of my parent’s home with my hand shaking as I dialed multiple digits with my index finger and then hang up before it could ring.

Multiple digits, multiple times

She said yes and we had a good time. My hand would shake as I held hers and I’ll bet it was full of nervous teenage sweat too. I cradled her hand like a robin’s egg. I chickened out on the goodnight kiss but did connect lips for half a second.

I really liked this young lady. And I was terrified of doing anything. Right or wrong.

Love? Nah I wasn’t ready for that, it took post high school to figure out what that meant and even then I was way off most of the time. My past relationships are mostly buried under therapy sessions and a barrage of “oofs”

I grew up watching 80’s romance comedy movies. Great ones.

16 Candles

Pretty in Pink

A Sure Thing

When Harry Met Sally

I read comics and fantasy novels with damsels in distress.

Hero always gets the girl

Nice guy does too.

I was never a hero though and for a long while I wasn’t a very nice guy.

I don’t discuss my old relationships on here for several reasons.

One- I’m still associated with most of my exes on here and I don’t want to be disrespectful

Two – I’m married and I don’t want to be disrespectful

Three – it’s no one’s business

Most of my relationships ran out of steam. Some were just bad timing while others we outgrew each other. Some ended amicably while others crashed and burned.

You grow up reading about soulmates

Romance novels

Hero carrying the lady of on his trusty steed.

Cue the key words-

Destiny

True love

Happily ever after

It’s all bullshit

“Well goddamn Chad who hurt you?”

That’s not what I mean y’all calm down.

All I’m saying is love is not a fairy tale. It’s not always Rapunzel getting her hair pulled. That one can go in a thousand different ways.. It’s not Molly Ringwald sitting across her soulmate kissing over a cake filled with candles.

No Never Ending Story lines

It’s devotion

It’s patience

It’s sacrifice

Surrender

Responsibility

It’s fucking hard

Take the 85 positions of sex out of the equation

The door openings

Long goodnight kisses

Date nights

Celebrations

All of these are great components of a healthy marriage. All of them rely on steam to keep going. Except for maybe the door opening. I’ve gotten slack on that one too.

*long sigh

I’ve spent the last couple of days watching my brother in-law sit beside my sick sister who’s in hospice care at the moment.

No phone, no tv, no book. He sits by her bed while she lies unconscious in hospice care.

53 years of marriage connects these two. I don’t know any part of my life that these two aren’t connected by each other.

He sits, hands in his lap and watches my sister struggle to breathe. Often times holding her hand. She’s aware. I know she is. She nods to his words at times.

His eyes are rewinding an entire lifetime of love and devotion. If they are soulmates it’s because they built that bond. There was no fairy wand. No evil dragon kidnapping, no high school bully putting a damsel in distress.

53 years of love. The real thing.

I’d watch him open her car door outside my deli when they’d come by to eat and smile. When they got too old for adventures they’d go on slow cruises and drive to enjoy some bird watching.

Together

Love man. I love them both with all my heart. It’s painful to watch love pass through grief.

Love is a note by the coffee maker after 20 years

Love is reckoning with your own heart to make it work

Quiet evenings on the porch talking about absolutely nothing

Forehead kiss before bed

Forgiveness

Changing to fit each other as you both grow

Sitting next to the bed as your significant other slowly says goodbye for life.

I’ve been crying for three days watching this. It’s tragically painful, heartbreaking

But

It’s also beautiful.

It’s how love ends for the right people as bad as it sounds. Ends isn’t the right word for this. I don’t have one at the moment. I get the marriages where one of the couples passes after decades of marriage and the other fades not long after.

I’d like to think they’re off the find each other all over again.

“Shake the Frost” plays in my ears.

“And I love you like the mountains
Loves the way the mornin’ opens
To a soft and bright greetin’ from the sun”

Tyler gets it. I do too. But I feel like I just did.

Marsha and Ralph. I’ve been saying that tandem my entire life. I know no other way of saying it.

Want to know what love is really about?

You gotta hang in there at times.

Yeah there’s a lot more but I’m spent man. I’ve been watching this movie my whole life and the credits may be rolling soon.

Be like Marsha and Ralph.