Romantique, Moi?

I sneer at romance. Chick flicks make me nauseous. Lusty males and swooning heroines send my eyes rolling heavenward. Pink hearts and bridal shows give me migraines. I dunno. Maybe itʼs my Virgoan hardwiring, but what many folk – particularly women – call romantic is what I call cause for a diabetic coma. Kill me now.

So, if I am so adverse to romance, how is it that last Sunday, when Will McAvoy chased down Mackenzie McHale during an election night newscast and clumsily asked her to marry him, I damn near burst into tears? Once I dried up, I had to think about that. Maybe I have been mistaken about romance.

It isnʼt about new love or young love or even strangers exchanging glances across a crowded room. For me, romance is the reward of a punishing struggle to overcome hurt, of lovers who fall out of each otherʼs arms and find their way back again. Romance is an elderly couple holding hands as they walk across the mall parking lot. Romance is the reunion of those parted by war or misadventure or misunderstanding. It is deep and passionate and painful and gorgeous and triumphant and enduring. It is not fluffy or silly or a comedy of errors. Romance is seriously potent stuff. It deserves respect because it overcomes. It surpasses honeymoons and arranged marriages to become something rich and pulsating and radiant. Romance is epic. Legendary. Unstoppable.

True romance is also on the endangered species list because these days love is disposable. Too few couples make the effort anymore. I recall a saying from years ago – I donʼt remember who said it: Love never dies from natural causes.

I am almost always working with lovers in my writing. Julian is my most romantic character, but my most romantic lovers are probably Lucius and Analise. Theirs is the eternally flaming passion that will not die because it has survived loss, conflict, separation and a somewhat volatile reunion. Romance is not for the faint of heart. Romance in its truest form takes time to reach its full potential.

Sometimes, it takes a recovery from the blow that shatters it. Will and Mac were broken for years, but they never stopped loving each other. They cannot go back, but they can certainly go forward. And if itʼs right, if it is a true romance, they will emerge the stronger for it.

But Iʼm not a romantic. Honest.