My Love Story

I must put down my engaging copy of Twilight to pay a brief tribute to great literature and to timeless romances. We all have our favorites, right?

I mean, who didn't stay up at slumber parties rewinding Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth scenes again and again? Who hasn't read those classic Jane and Rochester conversations over and over? Ok. Maybe just I did those things - but I can't think that I'm entirely alone! Women don't have an "Affair to Remember" reputation for nothing! And yet, there is a difference in the way I appreciated romance in days past and the way I appreciate it now.

Then, it was hopeful.
Then, it kept me up at night wondering about and dreaming up futuristic, imagined love stories.

Now, it is reminiscent.
Now it keeps me up at night remembering and reveling in the love story that has been my life's dream-like reality; the love story that continues to wind and climb and bend through life's changes, over life's difficulties, around life's uncertainties.

I used to simply live for a beautifully told, compelling romance.
Now I simply enjoy its reminder - even though it pales when placed beside the memory of Wes gently pushing the hair away from my face before he kissed me for the first time; the memory of his voice quietly whispering, "hello beautiful" one Sunday when he saw me in the hallway of our campus church building; the memory of kneeling in prayer beside him that beautiful moonlit evening when he asked me to be his wife.

Fictionalized love stories seem pretty emotionless and dull to me when I remember the heart-stopping, soul-swelling surprise of seeing the name Spencer Wesley Truman appear in my e-mail inbox after two years of posting very platonic, occasional, "he's-probably-forgotten-all-about-me," letters to "my friend" serving a mission in distant Norway.

And authors can write all they want about chemistry and attraction, but language simply cannot describe the wrenching thrill of seeing Wes smile at me in the dim light of a "Lucy's-in-bed" living room. Oh, that winsome smile. I can see it in so many different settings...
The night we were married
The moments after Lucy was born
The evening we sat in my freshman apartment listening to Shawn Colvin's "I never saw blue like that"
The day I brought Lucy to greet him in the hospital after his week-long recovery from intense surgery
The first time he called me "baby" and I realized, as my stomach fluttered, that he was absolutely cool enough to pull it off
Just last night when we looked at each other in surprise after observing Lucy pick up a copy of the Book of Mormon, open it, and say in a tiny voice "it came-a-pass..."

Such are now the scenes that rewind and replay in my mind again and again.

So don't get me wrong: great fictional romance is still great romance; still moving, still heart-warming.

It just doesn't compare.

And folks, I'm saying that GOOD romance doesn't compare. Bad romance doesn't hold a candle. And most media-portrayed romance is bad romance. I used to think that the awkwardness of steamy movie scenes would abate a little after I was married and was "used to that kind of stuff." On the contrary. Such scenes have become downright insulting. Wes and I talk frequently about how sickening it is to watch such utterly-uncommitted-love scenes held up as our society's expectation of true love. Gag, gag, gag. I'm sorry, but if you think that's passion, think again.

And so... I will happily return to my novel with girlish suspense and anxious anticipation. I"ll ask you what your favorite love stories are. I'll wonder if you've seen the new BBC Jane Eyre or if you've had a chance to watch The Scarlet Pimpernel lately...all the while knowing that even after the book is finished or the movie's over, there will be romance awaiting me in the laughter/passion/discussion-filled hallways and rooms of my own home. I'll share with you these much-loved C.S. Lewis words describing the committed love of a married man and woman,

“We feasted on love; every mode of it, solemn and merry, romantic and realistic, sometimes as dramatic as a thunderstorm, sometimes comfortable and unemphatic as putting on your soft slippers."

And I'll hope so sincerely that such true, abiding, faithful, and exquisite love now blesses or will someday bless each of you.