Romance

I think being single would be difficult. Most of the time though I think being in a long term relationship is harder, I mean that is why most people aren't in them right? I don't really know if it is a question of 'the right person' but probably a question of romance. After five years I obviously am not the same person I was when I began dating Marianne but I am inescapably the same as well.

As a child I was terrified of the idea of having to be romantic. I imagined that the world was swarming with these suave, debonair men just sweeping women off their feet with roses, horses and piles and piles of clever, sophisticated words. "I don't even know how to be a man" I thought. I was scared to buy flowers and terrified of walking into a jewelry store lest I be arrested for being there. I realise now though that I had a really narrow picture of romance, and I probably still do. Romance stretches far beyond my capacity to do anything. Romance is me listening; it is me looking and admiring and having my breath taken away. True romantics are changed from the inside by the wonder of the whole world and then, as an act of gratitude, pour themselves out into their beloved. The more I sit in the silence and wonder of life asking God questions without answers the more patient and distant I become with every hard word and business deal. All the advertising, all the concrete in the world cannot blanket the gift we have been given.

I think G.K. Chesterton said that: "The world is in no need of wonders, what it needs is wonder". I love that. If you are reading this, stop. If you are still reading, stop. Go outside, lie down and cry at all the tragedy, laugh at all irony and sigh at all the beauty. If you had listened to what I said earlier though you would not have read this and the above part; you would already be breathing life and not wasting your time reading the musings of a confused child.