How to Find True Love - Part 3

A romance writer shows her children... (By Nadine Crenshaw)


5. Only one person can be crazy at a time. Life is seldom a smooth highway of cooperation. you get angry. Your mate becomes obsessed. either one of you can become totally obnoxious. But you cant both go wild at the same time. One of you has to stay in adult mode. Please be forewarned: sometimes these attacks of craziness last a long while. Days. Weeks. Months.

One of my more prolonged bouts came in the 1970s when I started reading back-to-the-land literature. I spouted undigested theories about the beauty of nature versus the ugliness of modern civilization until your dad agreed to move to a three-acre farm. I bought a hundred chicks, two piglets and seeds for a garden - and commenced to learn a few realities, such as the relationship between irrigation and weeds, be nurturing animals and arranging for their butchering. When I suggested we move back to town, your father nodded his head in stalwart relief.

We laugh about it now, though other incidents even time hasn't made funny. Some of them wear my name, some wear his. Whenever you're feeling martyred, remember, your turn will come. So learn early two of the most important sentences in marriage: "I'm sorry" and "You're forgiven."


An acquaintance of ours pouts if husband forgets their wedding anniversary or the anniversary of the day they met. he appeases her by taking her out to a showy dinner every month or so - but otherwise he spends as little time with her as he can. They have fallen into a surface display of romance, perpetrated by the myths of an advertising age. It is a glossy shell that has little to do with the real thing.

The real thing has to do with love. And it isn't always glamorous or easy. Love helps you get to the bathroom when you're sick. Love agrees to disagrees on serious subjects. When you walk out the door in a rage, love trails after you, shouting, "You cant get away from me. I love you, and I'll follow you wherever you go!"

And so in my sleepless hours, Robby and Johanna, I wish for you that moment when you look up and find someone watching you as if you were a candle, as if you were the only light in a world of darkness.

The End