Trippin'

Love pops up in the most unusual of places.

My theory has always been that a splendid lifelong, mad and passionate love affair (which doubles as a marriage, life raft, and vessel for procreation and/or the cherished and ubiquitous presence of a continual travel companion) begins with a great story. One which you can carry with you and tell with ever-more relish as the years go by and the inquiries more awed at the achievement of it all.

I was once told, quite rightly, that it is not the story that is important, but the people and their relationship.

True enough, peanut gallery. But maybe, just maybe, we are both right.

Because love, whatever its form, always takes you by surprise. You never see it coming. Bumping into the stranger on the street, whose eyes you looked into with a million apologies as you try to help him pick up his lunch from the ground, and whose eyes you will look into again years later with a million hopes and dreams fulfulled as you recite your devotional wedding vows - a surpise! The childhood classmate, who used to pull your pigtails, who you run into again after all these years at high school reunion, who after the spark of reconnection, becomes a constant in your life - a surprise! The new roommate of an old roommate of yours, met when you went to return a lamp mistakenly packed away in your stuff in your last move - bam, sparks - a surprise! Even fulfillment of years of love, devotion, and unrequited sentiment (yes, s/he finally woke up and smelled the coffee - and it was you!) you never knew it was going to happen (you hoped, prayed, and promised your first born child and/or healthy long term chia pet for it) let alone when. You were, in a word, surprised!

Guess that is always why they say that it happens when you aren't thinking about it. I hate this statement, but mostly because I know it is true and I know that I can do nothing but think about it. Trying to ignore one's singleness is like trying to ignore the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Or the 50 other married/involved/affianced couples milling about. So I despair because I can't envision not thinking about my singleness. After all, how effective is it to be thinking hard about not thinking about being single? Perhaps the concept is not as self-defeating as it appears. Maybe it is a mistake to think about this "when you are not thinking about it" as a long stretch of time, as in the "I am not thinking about being single and wanting someone to hold my hand and help me zip up my dress (and unzip it too) when I am away on vacation" era of CLC's life. No, maybe it is more of a crevasse-dwelling concept. It can wend its way into those moments here and there, where your mind becomes distracted ("Did I remember to lock the door when I left this morning?" "Do I have enough quarters to do laundry tonight?" "Tastes great or less filling?") if only for a few moments from the eternal quest for personal plurality.

Hey - the other truism is that timing is everything. So if that is the case, my surprise love story can easily fit into the slim crack in the veneer of my obsessive-singleness, right? [Sorry, as noted before, it is spring, and upon my return from the purgatory of trial it appears everyone is in love. Lil' bit envious. So it manifests itself here.]

Anyway....

After a not so short digression - back to my original premise: Ideal love is premised on a good story. Why? (1) Love takes you by surprise. Always and without exception. And surprise always makes for a good story because surprise is, by definition, the unexpected. The original template may be one people have heard before, but the ingredients, the lovers and the spices they bring, are always new, intriguing and captivating. (2) In a emulation worthy relationship, the story is always great, because it is not just an opening montage (not just "how we met") it is the entire movie (or more importantly, "how we have chosen to stay together"). And it is there where it becomes clear why it appears that those with the best relationships are those with "good stories" - it is because their relationship as it is now, informs the story of the relationship and how it grew and grows. Relationships that are in the present time mundane or destructive lean so heavily on the scented perfume laden stories of their beginnings, that the cracks in the story and the lives intertwined within it are readily apparent - to everyone.

Good storytelling - requiring belief, patience, dedication, and a lifetime of devotion.