Soundtrack “Finish What You Started” Van Halen

I hate it when someone says “I love you”. It’s like repeating a sentence over and over again until it becomes indecipherable. The words resonate with all the conviction of “Have a nice day”.  It’s the default we fall back on when signing everything from a birthday card to a “To do list”. It’s as overused as the adjectives “awesome” and “amazing”. Now, sex can be “awesome” or “amazing” but pizza, not so much.  Its like saying “I’m sorry” with the frequency of commenting on the weather—–after a certain point it loses its sense of contrition. They don’t want to be forgiven, they want to be excused.  Some folks don’t really mean “I love you” nor do they really intend to “Bless you” after a sneeze.

Love isn’t sending dead flowers to the funeral tomorrow, it’s hand delivering hot gooey cinabuns today. Love is sharing a couple of beers on a bench while staring out at the ocean and talking about life, the good parts, the bad parts and still finding reasons to smile—-even though the sea air is damp and salty, their words help lift the fog. Love isn’t loyalty, it’s not cooking a good meal, it’s not being a good provider or a great housekeeper. Love is being understood. That’s it—–period. Love is grace, it’s given to you, even when you don’t deserve it.

Love isn’t a word. A word is an approximation. A word is a metaphor, it’s saying something is kind of like this other thing. Love is like nothing you’ve ever known, seen or felt. And once you try and make it happen, or try to make it stay, it suddenly vanishes. Love doesn’t “try” love “is”—-because—–“it is”.  Love is counting the freckles on her back, sprawled out on tangled cool sheets, strolls on damp rainy days, morning coffee flavored kisses, getting lost on drives to nowhere—it’s comprised of corny love poems and sappy love songs—–and its got you singing along to the car radio with unrestrained gusto…….

Don’t let them tell you that love takes work. Cause that’s bullshit. Once it becomes a chore like making your bed or brushing your teeth—–then you might has well be whistling while trudging along on a treadmill, so much sweat and effort for so little distance traveled.

The opposite of love isn’t hate. The opposite of love is indifference. It’s the difference between living your life in black and white or seeing it in 3D, HD—-in living color baby. Real love is like cake batter that you lick off the beaters until you tongue is sore from straining to get each and every hard to reach dollop.

I know most will say I’m an hopeless romantic. Well you’re right about that. I still believe in true love. One day of a true love is better than a million years of a love that’s full of fillers and mystery meat. Real love is rare, it’s the exception, not the rule. Ya see, I don’t want five okay steaks, I want one beautifully marbled, aged, charbroiled steak. I don’t want five cheap stogies, I want one hand rolled cuban cigar. I don’t want five cheap ass beers, I want one ice cold top shelf bottle. I don’t want five fair weather friends, I want one trusted best friend. I don’t want a butt load of half assed sex.  I want some “amazing”, “awesome sex”——and then maybe some “swell” pizza. Compromise is the road to mediocrity.

Hate is in some ways more accessible than love. Hate has legs, it will shake your ass up. Hate will get up off the page it’s written on and slap you across your appalled face. Hate is like stepping in dog shit when you’re wearing a pair waffle stompers. Once it makes its way into your treaded soul, it becomes tougher than hell to get off you. Sometimes ya just have to wait until it drys and then scrape it off with an old rusty nail. Even after you’ve meticulously cleaned all the shit off your soul, it will still take time for the smell of hate to fad away——hate isn’t worth it.

Love is worth it. If you can believe in democracy, and in politicians, and god, and truth and justice and science, art, and karma and some version of reality—–then surely, there must still be room left in your toy box for the idea of true love.

Repeat until it makes ya smile “ice, bank, mice, elf”.