Do you want Romance?

Romance. A word that makes a young girl’s heart beat quicker and her imagination run to places that make her smile and dream. A word that I feel embarrassed to admit I have any connection to at all. “Romance is NOT Jewish”, echoes in my brain, from many different voices in my past. If I am honest; I’m drawn to romance. I think if I had it, it would make me feel whole. It pulls at my heart and I envisage I would feel so wonderful if it were real. But if romance is so fake, I wonder why I yearn for it? What is it about it that really speaks to me?

I think about the story’s that have crossed my path that hinted at ‘Romance’. There are those story’s that always lead up to a relationship. They always make the main character feel special…and wanted. You never get to see how their relationship pans out, so it is left to your imagination. And since you have not seen or heard anything that hints to things getting bumpy, we assume the character’s life will be a bed of roses from now on. And we are left looking at a lack in our lives.

Then there are the other stories. The ones that they take us into the couple’s lives. In these tales, there are always bumps and trials. These stories are not really about ‘romance’ but about life. There are many different ways we might react to these stories, but they definitely do not hold the same pulling quality that the first type of story’s do. Firing up our hearts and our imagination, making us yearn for something deeply.

If romance is not real, then I don’t think it’s really romance I want. I am a real person who wants real things. And still, I feel the yearning so deeply, it’s a real part of me, a deep need I have. Other women have shared with me similar feelings. If it’s not the romance we want, then what is it?

I think again of the story’s that wake up this deep need. I analyse what it is about the stories that whets our appetite. I close my eyes and imagine being in each story. In each one I feel so special….so wanted….so important to someone…..so treasured…..so loved…so beautiful. This is what I want. I do not want my dreams to last only from my courtship to my wedding. I want to write the story of my life by combining both types of story’s. To live a real life with the ups and downs it brings and to always feel like I’m the most important person in my husband’s eyes, totally cherished. Because when I do, the bumps on the road of life become so much smoother and it’s easy to look through rose coloured glasses even on the greyest day.

[J1]