This, of course, all happened more than a decade ago, and such romantic moments no longer happened to us, or happened rarely. Time has whittled our capacity to be romantic because that is the central problem that tugs at the heart of true love and romance. True love demands knowledge someone intimately. It requires constancy and commitment. Te heart of its mystery lies in a person' ability to know you so well that the person chooses to love you, in spite of your ugliness. Romance can sometimes look like it lies on the other side of the spectrum. Romance works with a different kind of mystery with the desire to know someone that can be inexplicable. It begs for attention, which explains the grandness of its gestures: fleeting gestures that have a great impact on the senses, but not always on the soul. True love is a product time. Romance, on the other hand, hinges on "newness," "novelty," and "surprise." In the romantic mind, you wish to sleep with someone and look beautiful in sleep. In real life, one snores and drools in sleep, but and it's a big but: there's no one else you'd rather sleep with.
I have come to great understanding of this major difference now that we are older. For a while, it was difficult for me as I naturally crave romance, live for romance, need romance, especially in sustaining my creative life. What does one do if one has discovered the "pearl of great price," which is love, but constantly needs romance? I've discovered the most important secret of all: The greatest romance is the one I have with myself. It might sounds crazy, but it has helped me sustain a balance.
