If Only My Life Was a Jane Austen Novel....

I yearn for simpler times. I remember what it felt like before my first heartbreak. I loved romance. My first love was Rhett Butler. In fact, I was Scarlett O'Hara for Halloween when I was in the first grade. THE FIRST GRADE PEOPLE! Then I began my obsession with Jane Austen novels. Love and passion abounded, and I was hopeful and admittedly, extremely confident that my own great and epic love story would unfold, and would most likely involve someone with a British accent. Alas, twas not so. Enter the Jr. High school years. Its like a dark, smelly, angst ridden time in every one's past, that at least for me, would take more money than Oprah has in order to get me to revisit it. Enter the beginning of romantic disillusionment. There is no such thing as romance in middle school. Its just a bunch of boys trying to figure out what to do with that new and different tingle they feel in their pants. And a bunch of girls who are convinced that if they do what the boy wants, he will love them eternally and they will get married right out of high school and live happily ever after, OMG so perfect. Thankfully, you make it through those three years and proceed to enter what feels like semi-adulthood when you walk through the doors of your high school. At this point, I think most boys figure out that they gotta work a little bit harder to get the ladies. Bigger pond, more fish, all that stuff. Plus, you have high school dances, and all that stuff that I honestly never cared about and never attended. I avoided boys in high school. Really, I avoided high school almost altogether, but that is a loooong story. I had friends who dated. And truth be told, they did NOT have the most pleasant experiences. Their boy drama was enough to keep me occupied and to keep me single. I can't say that I've ever minded my independence; I've always been good at being alone. But, there does come a point where you get ready to move along in life, and having a partner doesn't sound too shabby. At this time, I still had faith in romance. I worked at a flower shop and I saw day in and day out just how romantic and loving men could be. Granted, we got a fair amount of men coming in to send flowers to their mistresses, but it was rare enough to not totally eradicate dreams of undying love. I also have to say that I've been pretty blessed to witness some amazing relationships and marriages within my group of friends and of course within my own family. Let's fast forward past some unimportant dating, some bad, some good, some that will never again be mentioned, and look at the summer of 2010. Things had ended, quite badly, with a long distance "friend". So what do I do? I go on a date a week later. Rebound? Yes, yes indeed. We shall call the man Idaho, since that's where he grew up. He was TALL and it was AWESOME. I mean, he had to have been like 6'4", and for me being 5'10" or so, it was perfect. He had red hair, which really isn't usually my thing, but whatever, I was hurting at the time and selfish, selfish me, needed someone to make me feel better. He also had lots of tattoos, which is TOTALLY my thing. Plus, the man adored me. He was almost 10 years older than me, and I must say, there is something to be said for that. Never in my life have I had a man compliment me more. Every time he would see me he would tell me how beautiful I looked, how lucky he was to have me in his life, etc etc etc. It was wonderful. And I was a horrible human being who used this sweet man to make myself feel better. I had to put a stop to it because soon, he was asking me how many kids I wanted and whether I would want a boy or a girl first. I still feel bad about the situation. Then, there was Barbary Coast. His nickname derives from a local biker bar where he bar tended. B.C. was about 6 years older then me and freaking adorable. He was part Mexican and was covered in tattoos, though I don't think he had as many as Idaho did. Our first date was awesome. We took TRAX, walked around downtown, and I even let him kiss me goodnight. You know how in Gone With the Wind there's that scene where Rhett kisses Scarlett, after her husband Frank's funeral, and Scarlett says something to the effect of "Don't, I shall faint"? I never would have thought a kiss could truly make someone feel that way, until B.C. kissed me. Good heavens, I could not see straight! It was like being drunk. It was amazing. It was fun. It was pure physical chemistry. But that's pretty much all that was between us. After things ended with him, I decided to take a break for a bit. Then, the beginning of this year, I met a new boy and I remember going home afterward and thinking "I'm gonna like this guy". But it wasn't romantic, at all. It was just friends. Good friends. We hung out all the time, almost every day. We had book nights, we played Scrabble, we even had sleepovers. I admit, after the first few couple of sleepovers, I was kind of offended that he hadn't tried to make a move, though I wasn't sure that's where I wanted the friendship to go. Then one night, it happened. And everything changed. For a while it was good. I liked where things were heading. But me and my stupid inability to communicate pretty much ruined things. I don't believe in regrets, but if I did...I'd regret not speaking when I should have because now that whole complicated mess haunts me. Out of all the boys I've ever known, he's the one that has gotten to me the most. And the odd thing is, there wasn't a lot of romance involved. Compared to my other relationships with men, it was fairly "quiet". No big, huge fireworks. No love drunk kisses. I know for myself, it was something deeper. And all this time I had these expectations of what I thought a love story was supposed to be. There aren't always fireworks, or instant attraction, or even extreme passion, and sadly, there aren't always happy endings. Love can hurt like hell, but it can feel like heaven too. Its funny how life can change our viewpoint. I always wanted a grand romance. Now, I want a best friend. Someone I can hang out with, even play Scrabble with, and someone that I will still want to do that with when I'm 99 years old. Sure, the heat and passion are great, but what do we have left when that fizzles, which it inevitably will? There is so much more to romance than that. And even though I had to get my heart broken, more than once, I wouldn't trade it. Knowledge is power, and knowing what you want, brings you that much closer to getting it. Do I still believe in romance? Hell yes. I believe in it, and I deserve it. But my idea of romance is definitely evolved. And I love it.