He showed up last night, after 11 days, just as I was putting the water on for pasta.

At some point, we talked more about this “true love” of his. You know, the wife of 35 years who broke his heart. He still says he believes you only get one “true love”.

I told him he was wrong.

But now? I don’t know Mom, maybe he’s not.

I guess this true love and him had dynamite sex for all those years and then spent the last 5 years fighting until he kicked her out.

“I’ve been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn’t listen. Every time you said ‘Farm Boy do this’ you thought I was answering ‘As you wish’ but that’s only because you were hearing wrong. ‘I love you’ was what it was, but you never heard.”
William Goldman, The Princess Bride

In his mind, great sex for 25 years equals “true love”.

I told him he was wrong about that. But he doesn’t want to hear that, he just wants to wallow in the pain of having his heart-broken.

I told him he was so very wrong.

That blue.eyed.man thinks he knows what true love is, but he has no idea.

True love doesn’t walk away so easily; it sticks to you like a burr caught in your hair.

I honestly thought he knew what he was talking about. I mean, after 35 years of marriage, I thought maybe she had been his “true love”. But he has no idea.

We talked yesterday too about poets, and he said he writes poems, but on his phone. I told him he should write them down in a journal of some kind. You know, put the pen to paper and make them a real & living thing.

“Westley and I are joined by the bond of love and you cannot track that, not with a thousand bloodhounds, and you cannot break it, not with a thousand swords.”
William Goldman, The Princess Bride

After we’d drank all his beer, and after we’d tried to have sex, but he’d drank too much beer…after sitting outside in his hammock. After talking about the world’s problems, and after some of his friends coming over to play horseshoes.

After.

Well, I’ll just say it…he said he had to go…wanted to go…and I was not apparently invited to wherever he was going. After he’d got some text from some friend. After.

After I’d told him that I love him. After I told him it was ok, that he doesn’t have to love me back. I just want him to be happy, and that’s why I was there. Even if happiness means someone else. I would still feel the same way.

So I left.

This morning I woke up, and still raging from the anger I felt. Raging. Saying out loud, as I stomped around making my coffee, over and over, like some sick mantra….”I will hate you forever, I will hate you for always”. Again, and again, and again.

After all that. I sat down and googled love poems. Looking for what other people had to say about love.

And I came upon a poem written by Maya Angelou.

And so I wrote it down on a piece of paper from my journal, and at the top said: “you are an amateur”. And I took Irish for a walk, and I woke him up off the couch where I guess he fell asleep…and I made him read the poem. I told him I am not some pair of pants he can just put on or off, as the mood strikes him.

I told him NEVER to show up at my door again. He said…fine.

And then I turned around and left.

Some chick you have great sex with for years and then just kick out the door? That is not true love.

This morning a post came thru my feed about skeletons of an elderly couple that were found, in the grave together, almost 5000 years old, holding hands.

That is true love.

True love is being by your side as you take your last breath…saying…”its ok, I’m ok, you can go now”.

True love is hard. It makes you cry. It’s power lifts you, moves you.

True love is this deep, undying thing that, like fairies, you have to believe in to see. To feel. To know. To touch.

““Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.”
William Goldman, The Princess Bride

So, Mom, I left him there in his grief. I left him there in his pain. In his heartache. Left him with his hangover, and his brokenness.

Because, I know what true love is. I’ve watched true love say goodbye. I’ve read about how you pick up the pieces and move on. How you publish a book of poems.

As Maya says…

And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

I don’t know this because I’ve felt it. No, I know this because I’ve SEEN it. Watched it. Cried as it said goodbye. True love wraps its arms around you and won’t ever let go.

True love doesn’t just move on.

“Tr…ooooo…luv…’
Fezzik grabbed onto Inigo in panic and they both pivoted, staring at the man in black, who was silent again. ‘”True love,” he said,’ Inigo cried. ‘You heard him – true love is what he wants to come back for. That’s certainly worthwhile.’
‘Sonny, don’t you tell me what’s worthwhile – true love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops. Everybody knows that.”
William Goldman, The Princess Bride

No, true love instead GIVES you the power to love again. It holds your hand for eternity and smiles down on you when you find it. It grieves for you. It wipes away your tears. It laughs at your stupid jokes, even years after you have died. It doesn’t just walk away.

Mom, one day I will find it. I’ll find it because I believe in it.

Like fairies.

And I told him so.

Love,