How love and belly button lint connect

Lets talk about love for a minute.

I keep seeing things in books, television, and movies, that try to suggest that love and attraction should start as an intense, irresistible chemistry, and that the intensity should never fade. 

Your skin should burn every time his skin touches your skin. Even when his elbow accidentally touches your arm because he is taking way too wide of an eating berth at the table. Smoldery burniness along side ,"please pass the salt". 

Stephanie Meyer tells lies. Hollywood tells lies. Karen Carpenter tells lies.

I love Karen Carpenter as much as anyone, but she sometimes sings untruths with that buttery voice. Lies stolen from Barry Manilow. 

I was singing this song while doing dishes the other day, and realized how awful the lyrics are:

At any moment he'll be walking through that doorBut he won't find me behind it'Cause the feeling is gone and just won't come back any moreI worked so hard to find it
I've been up, down, tryin' to get the feeling againAll around tryin' to get the feeling againThat one that made me shiverMake my knees start to quiver every time he walks in
I've read every book, looked for every meditation and poemJust to bring home that old sweet sensationBut it ain't no use to me to try to get the feelingI wanna get that feeling again

KJ Translates: (ahem) I am going to disappear mysteriously from your life because you aren't exciting anymore. I don't get all melty around you. I miss feeling melty. I haven't really liked you for a while now, so I read a couple meditation books about how to find you exciting again, but they were garbage. Ciao.

 What rubbish!


C and I never had this burning, irresistible chemistry. You may not believe it
when you see this picture from his junior year in high school....who could not feel warm fuzziness in their hearts while looking at that?!

Adorable even underneath that permed mop. I digress, as usual. 

Anyway, we were just two people who got along really well,(after a few months of me grudgingly holding on to an unfounded dislike) gave dating a try, and here we are! Love is vital to my life, and can be so exciting, but it isn't all fireworks and passion (maybe I'm missing out? But it actually sounds exhausing).

Love is eating your own pride for breakfast, and trying to keep it down for the rest of day.  

Love is NOT running when the newness and excitement wears off, and it will. I am not saying that relationships can't start with sparks and that knee quivery feeling, but realize that it wears off! Besides, you would end up with really bad knees, and probably get annoyed if it didn't wear off.  

Love is making yourself hold his hand in the car when you are super mad because you know you can't stay mad too long that way. 

Love is learning to not freak out when he throws is belly button lint into your hair because he knows it freaks you out. He kills the big bugs, so...

*disclaimer for C's benefit. He has done this only one and a half times. It was so traumatic that he will never live it down.

Point: Don't read Stephanie Meyer or watch any movie ever again. Pfff. Yeah right. Watch those delightful romantic comedies. Read those silly, books if you must. Enjoy them while recognizing that they pretty much don't portray any part of reality.

Use them to escape, and don't get too upset when belly button lint floating in front of your face pulls you back into a real and loving reality.