First Throes of Love

As I watch my young friend go through the throes of a first love, I marvel at the sheer energy it takes. Looks like it might be dead exhausting ( weeping one minute, laughing the next ) at times. And yet I find myself just a little envious.


Come tell me about love...
Nothing's quite the same as falling in love that first time after all. In that first flush of youth when we meet that seemingly perfect paragon ( before we start dissecting to find out all the flaws and that clubbed foot ), we all fall in love - and if we're very lucky, that divine someone happily reciprocates. Then it's all endless days of wine and roses, neverending nights of champagne and chocolates.

After all the birds and the bees do it, even educated fleas do it :)

In the sweet wonder of a first love, everything seems to come alive somehow. Practically a zip a dee doo dah day everyday - the colours are brighter, the feelings clearer, the sounds louder and somehow more alive. Amazing, but it's like getting all the five senses ( maybe sixth if you're paranormal ) supercharged by that indescribable new emotions called puppy love. Anything's possible.

However the course of true love never did run smooth. Even mini-breakups are filled with thunder and fury, little tsunamis in a teacup start teetering and threatening to topple from the edge. So much anger, tension and drama that even a Venezuelan tearjerker telenovela could compare. Quite possible that they do believe in Robert Browning that without love, earth is like a tomb.

Then age catches up, the sense get dulled and the bittersweet combination of heartbreaking disappointments and fallen wishes start building a prickly emotionless shell around the heart. A little sad but true. I'd love to feel like I could dance all night again but these days, I tend to tread a bit softly rather than follow where fools rush in.

Still, one of my favourite paragraphs about love comes from Dr Iannis in Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.

Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.

Some blame for my newfound cynicism has to go to my past experience with love which is why I had a chat with my ISO while I waited for Charming Calvin to pack his entire wardrobe into a minute suitcase for our weekend getaway.

Paul : What's wrong with us?
My ISO : What? You wanted to wail and moan about love? We'd have driven each other crazy in two days. Face it, we're not the die-without-love type.
Paul : Weren't we ever that passionate?
My ISO : Bet it would be exhausting but I believe we were. Didn't I have a lovely lamp in my place before you broke it?
Paul : I tripped over it.
My ISO : That's what you always say.
Paul : You're right. I should have hurled it at your face.
My ISO : But it's such a pretty face.
Paul : And I didn't break it on purpose.
My ISO : You did.

And no. I didn't break his lamp on purpose.