When one meets the love of one's life and vice versa when you're, say, 17 and 18 years old, one couldn't be blamed for perhaps feeling that such a meeting is just kinda the way things are supposed to be?
But hey, if you've been around the block once or twice by age 32 and 31, say, and then true lovers meet, well, nothing shabby with that, eh? A little practice under the belt, not bad?
Sometimes Cupid's acting shy and you've just turned 43, while your perfect mate you've just met is in their low 30's? Courage, mon petit!
As for yours truly, your bamboobear, I seemed to be in nonstop, at times overlapping relationships from age 14 to age 34. I remember in my early 30's a good friend once asking me, "How come your ex-lovers always seem to end up your best friends?" all I could come up with as reply was, "Just lucky, I guess."
On Thursday evening, June 11, 1987 Alva and I finally met. He was 47, and I’d just turned 37. Before we met we’d both been single for several years. And here’s the most important part: somehow we’d both learned before we met that being single was just fine, that we’d built lives full of work we loved, friends we adored and a deep down sense that our lives were good.
Of all the anniversaries Alva and I enjoy celebrating (and hey, we got married thrice before they’d declare us “legal”), the evening of our fortuitous meeting Is worth extra celebration, for when we met, we both knew: here he is at last. That summer 33 years ago was about confirming and deepening our deep connection.
The second most important part: our loving relationship didn’t ever have to be ‘perfect.’ We just knew that we’re willing to keep working on and learning about our union...every day. Learning how to make a love relationship work never stops and is never boring.
As artists and educators, lifelong learning, opening one’s heart to discover new insights, new music, new teachable moments and new ways of connecting, over this Third of a Century, Alva and I are still very different in temperament from each other, yet share one mind so often. We’ve become startlingly telepathic (finishing each other’s...uh...sandwiches?), yet I learn new things from and about my darling spouse every single day.
Whether you are single, partnered, have children or pets together or are having a long-distance relationship, all of the vital things you’re learning about yourself and the people you care most about —-all this learning and growing is exactly what brings contentment, lowers resistance to intimacy, brightens your days, and leads you up an illuminated path through your life.
Yes, each of us is in some fundamental way alone. Just as true (though not always just as obvious), opening our hearts to experience the connections that are woven into every day of our lives, committing to always learn more about oneself and one’s world, is the key to a full and fruitful life. Living in gratitude, counting your blessings, being willing to apologize and regularly telling your friends how you love them, listening well, and laughing together... that’s how Alva’s arrived at his 80th birthday and I’ve turned 70.
Finally, my current reality of Stage IV metastatic pancreatic cancer is serious, yet the clinical trial drug I’ve been on for six months has been shrinking the tumors in my lungs, while the Sea of Love I get to paddle around in every day and night buoys me up, my innate optimism undeterred by my now-open-ended prognosis.
Whether it be with a stranger in passing today, a colleague, someone you're courting, a new friend or an old lover, your job today is to be loving, responsive, careful, bold, funny and serious, all inflected by the love you put out there.
Happy 33rd Anniversary, my Sweetheart! Here's to more of Row, Row, Rowing Our Boat, Gently Down and Up the Stream. Life with you is indeed a dream, my dream come true