Romantic Love

I wonder when exactly was the first time my mother and father saw each other. Was it their wedding day? That would have been pretty awkward, wouldn’t it? They weren’t prepared to be married at such young age, yet, as far I could tell, their marriage worked out just fine. It lasted close to sixty years, until my dad passed away about two years ago. Was there romance in their marriage? I believe so. Did they ever consider splitting up when things weren’t going so well? I doubt it ever happened. “Sharing a bed together for one night should last for one hundred generations.” What does this Chinese saying mean? Who knows? People in the old days might not have known what true love was, but they sure did take romantic love a lot more seriously than we do. Consequently, their relationships lasted a lot longer than most of ours.

It takes both powerful emotion and strong will to love. The former involves our feelings and the latter our commitment. Romantic love will always have its ups and downs and the feelings lovers have toward each other often go through ebbs and flows, but there should be one constant that doesn’t change - commitment. Not only do we commit to the one we love, we also commit to the One who makes love possible. I can assure you that your love will last if you commit to both of the above.

To love is the easiest thing to do; yet it can also be the hardest. It does give us unimaginable joy, but it may also demand the sacrifice of our whole being. It’s rewarding as well as demanding. Do not rush into a relationship, for the essence of romantic love is its inevitability and all you need is one true love. You will know it for sure when it occurs, but your love probably won’t last beyond your erotic feeling for each other if you merely fall in love with love, or with something else.

By the way, the romantic love between my parents seemed to start out with an unyielding commitment to each other and ended with powerful feelings of affection, which goes to show that dating as we know it may not be necessary. In fact, I am often tempted to take matters into my own hands and do a little match-making for my boys. It may work out just fine like it did with my parents.