I Hate True Love

"Love isn't always difficult at the beginning. No. Falling in love is easy. Love enduring is the challenge. And, if it's real. it does."

S.E. Hudnall

 I hate true love.

It sounds like an improbable statement for a writer who calls herself someone who writes love stories. A romance writer who doesn't like romance? She must be deranged or something? It isn't right! One has to believe in love to write love stories, yes?

And that's exactly where the trouble lies. I do believe in love. I can't stop believing in it. I don't believe in true love, I believe in real love.

Like Len Barry’s song, falling in love is easy. Not difficult at all. A spark. A glance one second longer than needed. The sound of laughter. A smile or grin that melts your heart. One single moment, perhaps dismissed at the time but long remembered after as the moment you fell in love.

Staying in love? Continuing to love? Now there is the challenge. It's easy to love when it appears to be some dreamlike destiny, perfect, and filled with roses and champagne.

Real love hands you a cold washcloth after a bout of morning sickness. Real love has no qualms about going toe-to-toe over something then stepping back and saying, “You’re right. I was wrong.” –sometimes even when you’re right.  Real love fights for its existence and never gives up. It finds its anchors in the everyday, ordinary joys of banal existence–.washing the car together on a sunny day, hearing the door open and a voice asking for you, standing up and feeling a hand on your shoulder. It perseveres against threat. Real love endures, finds happiness in every day moments, and smiles.

Yes, that’s my trope and I’m sticking with it. Yes, I write love stories.