Things That Don’t Go Away – True Love by Sarah Zettel

It is Valentine’s Day, and therefore I have decided to speak of love. Specifically, True Love, that Holy Grail of the adult relationship.

I know something about True Love. This is my tenth year of marriage, my thirteenth year together with my chosen partner (a dashing rocket scientist named Tim). We have been through the thick and the thin, a lot of the better, some of the worse, some sickness but more health.

And I still get the tinglies when I look at him.

(And, of course, he reads this column. Hallmark is now out $3.50.)

Anyway. After over a decade being immersed in the stuff, I am prepared to say I have a few thoughts on what, exactly, True Love is.

Here are some of them:

Let’s start with the obvious. True Love, the real thing, the thing that is there after all the passion has calmed down, the thing that is there when you have acknowledged that that REALLY ANNOYING little thing the other person does is NOT going away, the thing that is even there when you’re staring at each other hip deep in trouble that could have been prevented, and wasn’t.

True Love is found in how the small things are handled as well as the large things.

True love is the adjustment of routine, accommodation, easy exchange. True love is how you realize that even when you’re sleeping alone in a hotel room you sleep on “your” side of the bed. True love is how you pick up the other person’s favorite stuff at the store, how you take up the household slack when they’re busy or not well, and how you remember to say thank you when you see what’s been done. It’s in the space you give each other as much as in the closeness.

True Love is not ineffable. It is in how you do the work of integrating the other person into your life so firmly that most days you don’t even feel like it’s work.

True Love pays attention. You notice when the other person needs you. You do notice when they’re tired, when they’re hurting, when they’re just plain pissed off with the day, and you know what to do about it, and you do it. True Love notices whether or not things like, oh, Valentine’s Day, are important to the other person and to what degree they’re important, and responds appropriately.

True Love forgives slip-ups on the details, because True Love is a thing that happens between adults. True Love, for all it’s reputation for making grown people into idiots, actually forces the most adult behaviors and decisions you are ever going to make, because when it is real, it puts another person’s life into your hands.

True love does the hard things. Even when the hard thing is “If you don’t get help for your drinking/drugs/depression, I’m leaving.” Because True Love does not allow, or demand, self-destruction. No matter what nineteenth century novelists tell you, True Love does not kill you, separately or together. If you’re dying for it, it’s infatuation, it’s passion, it’s obsession but it is not love. True Love does not want you dead. True Love wants you alive and happy and walking the Earth for as long as possible.

True love is a shelter, but True Love is not salvation. It can, however, help you find the way to save yourself.

True love is not blind. True love sees the whole picture, clearly, way beyond what your mirror shows you and it stays with you despite the changes you see in that mirror. It shifts and it turns and it grows. It’s complicated. Oh, boy, is it complicated. It is sometimes incomprehensible to anyone who is not in it, and yet you know it when you see it.

True Love involves good sex and plenty of it. But it involves much more friendship and respect. Friendship and respect will get you through a lull in your sex lives way better than sex will get you through a lull in your respect.

True Love evolves. It stretches and changes. It is very different at the end than it is at the beginning.

True Love is not jealous because True Love is confident and secure, because of all that work put in. This does not mean there is no fear when there is True Love. One of the prices paid in return for the benefits is the occasional fear of loss that can at times be utterly overwhelming.

It is true that True Love is a trap. You are not free anymore, and times you look out the window and just want to run away from all the responsibilities and pressures being an adult in love has brought down on you. And then you turn around again, and the little thing happens, like cuddling up against your Someone at four in the morning when you can’t sleep for the fear and the worry, and, without waking, they put their arm around you and pull you close. And all the world is all right again and you know you’ll be able to get up in the morning and get back to work just fine.

Happy Day to all. Please feel free to use the space provided to add your thoughts on the subject, or to out Hallmark another $3.50 and send out a thought to your own True Love.

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