I don’t believe in romance as a general rule. People who’ve known me for a long time aren’t surprised by that, people who’ve only just met me or only know me through this blog are usually surprised by that. I just don’t see romance, at least in the way we think of it today, as any kind of lasting or true emotion or feeling. Give me commitment, give me concrete acts of love, kindness, and service. That’s what I want, you can have all the diamonds, flowers, showy emotional displays, etc. I don’t want them or need them thank you very much. I don’t need or want for Jeff to write that he loves me across the sky, it doesn’t stir my soul. Him changing my tires in the middle of the night when an early snowstorm hits, that is romance to me, that is love and caring and real on every level that is important to me. I’m not judging how anyone else might feel about romance, it’s a deeply personal thing, I’m just trying to explain my general feelings about it.
Normally, I wouldn’t talk about my feelings about romance here but I needed to clarify my general feelings about it so that I could explain why this sign is the most romantic thing ever. That sign is an early birthday present to me from Jeff (my birthday is still 2 weeks away). I’ve been wanting a Two Frog Home sign to hang around our place for a while now, but we just didn’t find anything we loved. Well, unbeknownst to me, Jeff did some work in trade with a sign maker. Jeff roofed a shed for the man and the man created this sign.
Jeff gave it to me early and has hung it on the garage so that it’s seen just as folks come into our driveway. I cried, it stirred my soul that deeply. I still don’t believe in romance, but I do believe in sharing my life with and being committed to the amazing man who happens to understand just how very much something like this would touch me. Maybe that’s romance and what I’ve always thought of it as was something manufactured by fairy tales and simply misguided, in the end it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I do believe that I’m luckiest girl in the world. And truly, isn’t it an amazing sign?
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“I do believe in sharing my life with and being committed to the amazing man who happens to understand just how very much something like this would touch me. ”
That sentiment, and that adorable gift that he put such work and thought into, are romantic in the deepest sense, showing real feeling, not showing off for others to see. Trust me, I’m a romance writer. I know these things.
Oh my dear and quite the romance writer you are! I’m completely willing to admit that I have a misguided sense of romance, ha. I have a long email in process to you as well. It’s been too long since we talked.
Yes it has. Summers are busy chez Cat-Herder, as I’m sure they are the Two Frog home.
this made me smile in a huge way. i feel the same way you do about it all…and yes, you two have something amazing <3
It is an amazing sign.
If all women in America (and men) were more like you, the world would be a better place.
What a lovely gift. I’m sure it means so much to you. I’m with you about the romance stuff. I’ve been married 38 years and I’d rather have my husband take the trash out without me having to ask than for him to send me flowers we can’t afford that will just die. A gift that truly comes from the heart is so much more precious than one that’s jsut bought with little thought.
That is a great sign!
I don’t care for the “Hallmark” type of romance, but as I’ve told my husband, little things like coming home from a visit to my parents to find he’s got dinner started are lovely romantic gestures, at least to me.
Sometimes I yearn for the flowers and the cute stuffed animals but you know when I’m tired and he washes my feet I know he loves me and I am swept away and grateful.
Everyone has a different love language that they speak and understand, it is wonderful that Jeff speaks yours! Romance comes in so very many varieties outside of what we have been spoon-fed by fairytales, tv and bodice ripper novels. I always preferred “outside the box” myself