The way things would have been

Romantic love causes more pain and more joy than anything else in the world and it's truly the one thing in our lives that the more we find out about, the less we realize we know.

I get a lot of grief from my ex-wife when I write about the love of my life because she thinks my boys should be the loves of my life. Well, of course they are. They have been since the day they were born. I savor each victory they achieve and hurt more than they do when they taste defeat. You would think she would know that, but whether she does or not, I know they do. When anyone talks about the love of their life, they're talking about romantic love, not love for their children, their parents, or their friends

I suppose in a way I've been lucky in life like that. I've been in love more than once and more than one woman has been in love with me. I was married to a woman that I dearly loved for over a quarter of a century but as the old saying goes, "All good things must come to an end" and it did because it stopped being good. When that happens, there's no reason to stay another day.

I've always been a passionate, take-charge kind of guy. I never ask for any quarter nor do I give it, especially when it comes to love. That upsets some people and I understand why but we're all trying to do the best we can do with the brief amount of time we have to live on this planet and that's what I'm trying to do too.

My heart has been broken more than once, just like most of yours have been too. We think we have a handle on our lives and our loves and then, in an instant, it all dissolves right in front of us and we have no idea what happened.

In spite of the hurt involved when things go wrong in a relationship, not knowing what went wrong is the biggest hurt of all. When people change their minds about loving us, it seems so wrong because we've been raised to believe that love lasts forever and once somebody finds the courage to express that love to the light in their life, it will always be there, regardless of anything else that happens.

I've had my heart broken twice since my wife and I divorced. Both times were gut-wrenching. Both times stole my very soul. But the second time was much harder than the first because she was my soulmate; the love of my life. All of us search the world over for the perfect person for us and sometimes, when we find them, no one else can believe they're the one we fell in love with because no one else can get inside our heads, our hearts, and our souls.

So when that relationship ended, I started a journal and named it "The Way Things Would Have Been." She left my life five years ago and not a single day goes by without me making an entry. As a college professor, I often hear students complain about writing a one thousand word essay. My own essay is now up past 28 hundred pages and it grows a little more every day. No one will ever read it but me. When I first started writing it, I hoped that one day she would be able to read it or at the very least, want to read it. That's not likely to happen now but I write it for her anyway because, when I'm writing, she's here with me, just like she was almost every day for all those years. When I told my ex about my project, she asked why I didn't channel all of that energy into something productive rather than writing about a fantasy. I replied that a large part of all our lives are lived in fantasy and that I WAS doing something productive, at least for me.

There are very few things in our lives that obsess us, very few things that shadow every step we take, every move we make, and every thought we think for every second of every day. There are very few things that grab a piece of our heart and soul and won't let go.

She was that thing.