Falling in love …

“Are you still in love?” a colleage recently asked, after hearing my partner and I have been together 112 years.

“There’s never been a time in my life when I haven’t been in love,” I replied.

The look I got in return reminded me why it’s sometimes good to censor ourselves before blurting out our truth.

But if truth be told, I meant what I said.

“Being in love” is the feeling of  connecting with a person on a level so deep it’s scares the shit out of you.

There’s a newness you feel, not just about the person, but about life in general, that’s intoxicating.  It’s a drug on which every breath you take depends.  Yet the more you take, the more it takes your breath away.

Everything the person does is endearing.  Everything they say, a sweet melody that enters your ear, goes straight to your heart and makes your legs go weak.

A few months later, not so much.

What was sweet in the beginning now checks in with your brain, deadbolts the door to your heart and makes you want to kick the once object of your affection  in the knees.

A clear sign that you have most definitely fallen out of love.

This is the point where most people either stay and create a relationship, or they move on, hoping to recapture the “in love” feeling with someone new.

After all, can you really ever fall in love with the same person?  Is it possible to regain that sense of newness after the so-called initial magic has worn off?

Well, yes and no.

Falling in love with someone — even if that person has been around for what seems like forever — isn’t easy.  Sometimes you have to look back at the memories you shared throughout the years in order to remember why you fell in love in the first place.

The intensity may not be what you felt at the start, but what could be more magical than sitting on the couch on a Sunday afternoon watching a movie and suddenly looking over at that person and realizing there’s nowhere in the world you’d rather be?

It’s the best drug in the world.

Furthermore, why limit being in love to a romantic interest?

If falling in love is about newness, surely you can find something new about life to fall in love with every day.

Holding a newborn baby in your arms,  making up with your best friend after a fight, tasting the most magnificent cabernet you’ve ever tasted and remembering you paid less than $20 for the bottle.  All of those are reasons for falling in love with life.

Falling in love is not that hard to do if you look with the eyes of your heart.

As for the 112-year partnership in the opening sentence above, it’s not a typo.

I have a  105 -year-old daughter who taught me that falling into — and giving — unconditional love every day is not only possible, it’s the juice that keeps me living every day I’m alive.