What is Love, Really? (How My Youthful Ideas May Have Impacted My Perception of Reality) Part II

(Continued from last week)

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I was “in love” with a gorgeous boy in high school. His name was Bob. He looked just like Robert Conrad on The Wild Wild West. He really did. But our family moved to another state just when I was starting to think about boys like that.

I didn’t really date in high school, but when I graduated and started working, I met a handsome boy. I liked him a lot, but I can’t say now if I truly loved him.

I ended up marrying him and we had a child together, but as the months went by, he became more and more abusive until it got to the point where I was afraid for my life and that of our son, so I divorced him. My life at that time, was a nightmare.

Looking back, I can’t say that I felt love for him because the bad memories far outweigh whatever good ones there might have been.

A few years later, I met my current husband. He made me laugh. He was kind to me and we had fun together—went places, did things. I would say that I was in love with him, but this time it was perhaps more of an adult form of love, with some protective barriers put in place. I was apprehensive about getting married again after what happened to me the first time, but we eventually tied the knot.

Life became a whirlwind of raising kids and all that family life entails. I loved every minute of it. I loved being a mom. Those were the happiest years of my life.

But something happened to the love between my husband and me. It got lost in the raising of kids and in the paying of the mortgage.

I love my husband, and I know he loves me, but now that the kids have grown up and moved out, sunset couple kissingand after reading all that recent hoopla about David Cassidy, I found myself asking myself, What is love, really? Did my innocent devotion to the likes of David Cassidy and Bob, that boy in high school, stymie my chances of ever finding those kinds of feelings within myself, that, to me, were proof of real love? I’m sure that I had those kinds of feelings–fireworks and all–when my current husband and I got married, but was it to the same degree that my childish notions told me they should be?

Because there are so very many different types of love besides the romantic kind, like the love I feel for my friends and my family, and even my pets.

My love for my husband has morphed over many years of having to compromise and get along with someone even when you don’t agree with them. It comes from growing together, then apart, then together again. It comes from being able to finally see the sacrifices that person made for you, for the family you share. That is love. But it isn’t the flowery, floaty, frothy, fiery kind of love or lust, that first made you turn your head in their direction… and wonder… what if?

Does that fiery kind of love really happen to real people or is it just in the movies? Is it possible that the protective barrier I devised could now be hindering my ability to see beyond it?

And why do I love movies like “The Bodyguard,” “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir,” and “Message in a Bottle” where the lovers can never really be together? Those stories that are bittersweet and heartbreaking. Maybe because that’s what my definition of love has shifted to after all the life experiences I’ve had: real love is supposed to be bittersweet and leave you alone in the end—forever longing for those feelings you once shared with someone or for someone, even if for a very short time. (Like my feelings of aloneness after the passing of both of my parents.) Even if you are still married to that person and those types of feelings have gotten lost in the shuffle of life and you forever long for their return.

And what about attractions to people that we can’t or shouldn’t be with? For instance, in my case, David Cassidy and my first husband. Why are we attracted to people like that? Is that really love? Misguided love? Or, in my case, was it my childish fantasies that left me feeling so smitten I could hardly function and therefore ended up cheating myself out of life because I was so enrapt with that one person, ad nauseum? In “The Road Less Traveled,” author M. Scott Peck said that sexual attraction is nature’s trick to get us to spread our seeds as much as possible—survival of the species. Could be, I guess, but that can’t be all there is to it.

girl-lying on her back dreamingI don’t know where I fit in any of this. I keep waiting for that pie-in-the-sky sort of all-consuming, soul-baring kind of love with my husband, but I also know that he does the best he can. We both do. It’s my own fault if I fell into a trap of complacency, of mostly just survival with a few fun things thrown in. Or maybe I just need to change my focus and concentrate on all the blessings I have–and the man (my husband), who loves me in his own way of loving. At the same time, maybe that’s why I have an insatiable need to write. I can create fictional characters to fulfill my ideas of what love is or isn’t. But … in the long run, is it ever really enough?

What is Love, Really? (How My Youthful Ideas May Have Impacted My Perception of Reality)

IMG_5239I admit it. I am obsessed with love.

I espouse the notion that love can solve anything. Heal us. Make the world a better place. I look for it everywhere and in every person, place or thing.

But love can be a very difficult concept, or, at least we make it that way. When I was young and thought I was “in love,” was that really what true love is all about? The naive, flowery, sharing a soda, holding hands, dreamy, floating feeling? Kisses under oak trees with falling leaves, walking through the park, spending hours just gazing into each other’s eyes?

Did those notions cloud my perception because I was sure that that was real love and anything less didn’t qualify? (Besides the unconditional love my parents had for me and that I too, have for my own kids and grandkids.)

The other day I saw the following video online about David Cassidy falling off the stage during his concert: TMZ

I took it personally and couldn’t figure out why. I don’t know the man. Never have.

(Today, Cassidy is announcing that he has dementia, which is supposedly the reason for his not being able to remember the lyrics to his songs, and that may very well be true. But I’m not here to debate Cassidy’s mental health, or his personal issues. This piece is about love. The recent news about him is what got me thinking about all of this.)

I was “in love” with David Cassidy when I was a young girl in the ‘70s. I was going to move to California, become an actress, and marry him. Thousands of other girls had the same dream, I knew, but that didn’t hinder me one bit. I just knew that when he saw me, we would instantly fall madly in love and get married and live happily ever after.

That was before David Cassidy was a real person.

In my teenage mind, he was the epitome of the perfect boyfriend and husband. He was handsome, sexy, romantic, caring, sensitive, and had a beautiful singing voice. He seemed to respect women. He had kind of an androgynous look that wasn’t threatening, that was safe and protecting. He seemed smart and kind and all the other things I thought would make the perfect life partner.

Then one day, Rolling Stone Magazine featured an article about David and he appeared nude on the cover—and in the centerfold. I was flabbergasted. I was probably 14 or 15 at the time. The bubble of naïveté that encased my fantasy wasn’t just popped, it was sliced into a million pieces by shards of cold, thick glass and lay hemorrhaging at my feet.

I remember sitting on the floor in the drugstore and reading the article. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the words, “Aw shit man, take drugs,” and the words that spelled out what a “great fuck” he was and much more.

I bought the magazine and took it home with tears running down my face. It couldn’t be! This perfect man—he was all a lie???? Something the TV show and the fan magazines all constructed?

It was inconceivable to me that anyone would make up blatant lies about someone and pass them off as “the truth.” The media had me believing that David’s favorite books were “The Godfather” and “Siddhartha.” Reading “Siddhartha” made me believe that David was a deep thinker and it only endeared him to me more. Reading “The Godfather” at 14 caused me permanent mental damage.

Either way, David Cassidy became an important part of my life, of my newly-forming ideas of what love was all about. I had no concept of sex back then. I really was that naive.

After reading the Rolling Stone article, David was dead to me and I mourned for a very long time. I remember my dad using the experience to teach me that David was a human being just like the rest of us, something my young mind refused to accept.

But to this day, I still love to listen to some of Cassidy’s old songs—the ones where he croons in his soft breathy voice about making me his, and trips to my father’s summer cabin and holding me in his arms—being together. Impressionable young girls take these things personally. At least I did.

And now, seeing what a disgraceful performance he gave on that recent video, I am embarrassed for him. I know that his dad was an alcoholic and that he perished in a fire started from his lit cigarette which he dropped while sitting in a chair because he was too drunk to move.

I also know that David has been arrested for several DUIs and has been to rehab to help him overcome his addiction to alcohol. He apparently has a few issues, but then, who doesn’t?

I heard David, himself, say that those who managed him took full advantage of him, that he never got a cut of any of the paraphernalia with his name and picture on it—books, lunchboxes, bubblegum cards, pillow cases, you name it. I don’t know if any of that is true, nor will I ever. I do know, because Cassidy has said it many times, that he felt he could never measure up to his father’s standards—it seemed that Jack Cassidy was jealous of his son’s fame and fortune—and nothing David could ever do was good enough to earn his father’s love.

It just goes to prove that he is a person just like the rest of us. Just because someone is famous doesn’t mean they are happy or have it all together mentally. I can think of many examples, among them—Michael Jackson and Robin Williams. They had all the talent in the world, and money and admiration, but they had issues. Serious issues.

This leads me back to love.

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I based my idea of what love should be, on false impressions of a person I didn’t even know. And now that I’m older, I wonder if those ideas were really what love should be or if they were simply unrealistic fantasies of a young mind. Let me see if I can explain.

So if I have these raw, untainted emotions as a child, are those more authentic simply because they aren’t based on preconceived notions of what something should be? Or are they just fantasies? And, in any case, aren’t these the sorts of emotions that make artists great? Baring one’s soul and raw feelings and observances of the world in a way that provides a connection to others? The fact that the message conveyed is universal?

(To be continued next week…)