Week of Love, Wednesday

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This is one of my favorite love stories.

My brother Ed is a very practical person. He’s not given to flights of fancy. Although a lot of fun, he is very duty-oriented and pragmatic. This is why it was such a surprise when, a few years ago, he uprooted his life to go on a bona-fide quest for love. Ed had been living for years with someone that he really did love but also had a certain amount of conflict with. Someone he cared for but knew was not the perfect soul mate for him. At his stage of life (mid-thirties at the time) it would be easy to go with the flow and accept the tired axioms that “love is a lot of work” and “no relationship is perfect.” But he had a vision for himself, and in early middle age left his house, hometown, and settled relationship to move to a brand-new city where he knew exactly one person.

As he settled into a condo and a new job, he began to date. Being the good-looking, smart, fun, and kind person that he is, he had lots of takers. I met a lot of these guys, and they were invariably nice people. But if, within 6-9 months or so, Ed didn’t feel that the spark was there, he ended the relationship. He wasn’t on a quest for a nice person. He was on a quest for LOVE---all-out, you’re-the-one-I’ve-waited-my-whole-life-for, soul-mate love. He actually found it hard to end these relationships when there was nothing really wrong . . . hard to disappoint the other person who still had hopes. But with single-minded vision he stayed true to what he wanted for himself.

After a few years, he fell into lust at first sight with someone he met at a neighborhood bar. Someone whose appeal was undefinable but instant. As date turned into relationship and then into living together and eventually marriage, I saw Ed blossom into a person of profound happiness, whose eyes light up at the mention of his partner, who laughs so easily, and who knows the joy of being understood and appreciated by one person who he understands and appreciates in turn.

Every love story in books and movies is a tale of obstacles surmounted, and these fictional obstacles (family, money, misunderstandings) serve to represent the epic journey that every heart takes who aspires to love. If you have struggled for love, have sacrificed for it, have despaired of reaching it, then you are the Mallory and Columbus and Perry of the heart. Good sailing.

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