Love is one of the most misunderstood experiences in life.
We chase it, define it, lose it, rebuild it, and sometimes walk away from it bruised and exhausted — wondering if it was ever real at all.
But if you live long enough, and lose enough, you start to see through the drama.
You begin to recognize what love isn’t. And slowly, you begin to understand what it truly is.
I’ve watched love fall apart in ways I never expected. I’ve seen it shattered by betrayal and by silence. I’ve been through the heartbreak that comes when someone you trust decides to go another way — not because you stopped loving them, but because life, money, or time quietly rewrote the story without asking your permission.
When I found out my first wife was cheating, I was angry — but also, strangely, relieved. Looking back, I don’t think we were ever really in love. We married because our son was born, and at the time, that was what you did. It felt like the right thing then, but doing the “right” thing doesn’t always make it the real thing.
My second marriage was different. She was a good woman, but after her father passed, something changed. She lost a great man — and gained a fortune. The shift was subtle at first, but real. I’ve always been old-school, raised to believe a man should carry the load, protect the home, and lead from strength. She, suddenly, didn’t need that. She felt she could carry it all herself. And bit by bit, the road began to split. Two good people, two different paths — no villains, just a slow drift away from what once held them together.
You go through enough of that, and eventually you stop asking what went wrong. You start asking what was true.
The Circle Back
Life has a way of looping back when you least expect it.
Forty years ago, I met someone — a friend of my sister’s. I always liked her, though back then she had her own world to live and I was barely a thought in it. We crossed paths once or twice, and then life carried us off in different directions.
Decades passed.
Then, suddenly, there she was again.
It was awkward at first — seeing her after forty years. We were older, both shaped by the long roads we’d walked. But she was still beautiful. The same smile, the same laugh — the kind that makes you melt and forget where you are for a moment.
And somehow, in that awkwardness, there was peace.
No expectations. No games. Just familiarity — the feeling that maybe this connection had been waiting quietly all along for the right time.
Beyond the Surface
The world talks a lot about compatibility — education, lifestyle, income, ambition. We build checklists for love like we’re shopping for furniture. But real love doesn’t care about any of that. It doesn’t measure, it doesn’t score. It simply recognizes.
When you strip away all the differences — what you’ve done, what you own, what you want — what’s left is what always mattered: connection.
The smell of her skin when you hug her. The way her eyes soften when she looks at you. The warmth that comes just from being near her. In those moments, everything else disappears — the noise, the stress, the past.
That’s love. Not the fireworks, not the drama. Just stillness.
The quiet recognition that you’ve found someone who sees you, and you see them, without needing to explain anything at all.
The Lesson in the End
Every new day brings a new hug, a new look, a small renewal of that feeling. It’s never the same, but always familiar — like life’s way of saying, this is what it was all for.
After all the heartbreak, the rebuilding, and the noise, you start to understand something simple: sometimes it’s better to be alone and wait than to stay in something that eats away at your core.
Because real love — the kind that’s steady, calm, and grounding — never drains you. It fills you.
It doesn’t demand attention; it gives peace.
It doesn’t take from you; it restores you.
That’s the still point in a spinning world.
That’s what we’re all really looking for — even if it takes half a lifetime to find it.