Life of an eternal romantic

I spent a lot of time by myself this past week. Got me doing a lot of reading, a lot of thinking. Something I so rarely get a chance to do. I was listening to a lot of music, but music bugs me at times. Reminds me of days past and the phase of life that that piece influenced. Something incredibly romantic about the pangs of sadness nostalgia brings. One of the few things that tops it, is the phenomenon of falling in love. Getting to know a new person, a new presence, and getting washed all over. In the age where hand-written love letters have been replaced with electronic media and electronic media alone, this usually translates to waiting for that email notification to pop-up, that phone to buzz with the incoming text or call - definitely less romantic but having the potential to set the heart racing just as much.

That got me thinking - man (err pardon me, woman too), is so in love with the idea of being in love, that there is that eternal need to feel like a teenager having a massive crush. Well, maybe not all men (yes, and women). But there is a certain percentage of the human race (present company included), who are such die-hard romantics that, this drama and the sense of being weak-in-the-knees is almost like a life supply. At the risk of coming across as a maniac, I will continue to present the train of my thought.

I realize that one of my biggest fears in life, is the idea of falling out of love. If asked to portray a mental image of myself, it would be so. A certain character in a certain movie who is totally in love with the idea of being in love, causing her to sprint across vast expanses of green, dressed in white, trusting that He would give her a sign when she found her love. Sounds pretty corny, doesn't it? But that's me. When I saw that on screen, me, along with my co-inhabiters of the "being-foolishly-in-love" world, established a picture of themselves in their heads.

Leads me to think - what happened to that dreamer when she found her soul mate (dang it, I am setting myself up to be considered a totally crazy person today, aren't I? My take on soul mates needs a whole other  blog)?  Did she settle down to have a family of 2 kids, a dog and a house in the burbs? Or did she yearn for that romance to be alive and kicking for years to come, despite the blah of everyday life?

I leave you, dearest reader, with this thought - When the magic of it all fizzles out, how do romantics survive? What keeps them going? My take? - A romantic is never ever really out of that state of being in love, never really out of that state of having a muse. That, and only that, keeps them smiling, keeps them floating, keeps them sprinting across imaginary greens.

Care for a do-over?

Ever wonder how your life would be, had you got one do-over? I was doing my usual routine when I fly. I nap for about 30 seconds, reach out for the airline magazine, make a mental note of our next destination somewhere between the amazing hotels advertised and the things to do in a certain vacation spot, open my iPad to read, read for about 45 seconds before switching over to Solitaire. I was on a particularly bad streak of losing when i realized that the game allows you one do-over. That practically changed the course of my game. And that got me thinking - if the face of a game can change with one do-over, how would one do over alter the course of one's life?

More interestingly, I started to think of things that I would change, events/decisions/moments I would want to erase from my life and start over again with that one do-over. There are things that come to mind right away - that extremely embarrassing moment when I waved back to a person only to realize that the person was waving at someone behind me, the numerous heartbreaks, the bad hair style choices that ended up in pictures, the mere thought of which make me cringe, the genius moment when I decided to color my hair red, moments of utter dismal weakness, the multiple overseas flights alone, only to name a few. That's when I realize, this list will never end - for ANYone.

I WISH I could find one person who would attest that their life, it's course, their decisions, where they've been and where they are going, everything in their life choices was perfect. I KNOW that despite the unending list, my life feels perfect. It fits. It makes sense. Every single life experience has made me the person I am, and in its own crazy, twisted and imperfect way, my life is that of a very happy person.

I realize that I am weird and whacked out and to me, that's the only way to be. How can one take life too seriously? When the tick-tocks chime away unnoticed, how much sense does running behind making a grand big picture make? In its own convoluted form, my life, in all it's drama, in all its beautiful and bitter moments, in all its glory and darkness, has taught me a very simple thing. Almost too simple. The smiles that were, will always make you smile, and the tears that were, are gone. Life, in that vein, cannot get much more perfect now, can it? How would one do-over fix something that is already perfect?

Ever wonder how your life would be, had you got one do-over? Turns out you don't need that one do-over or for that matter any number of do-overs to look back and admire the magnificence of your current life story.