Love Means Never Having To Say I Watched An Episode Without You

I’m constantly redefining the meaning of romantic love. This is obviously because I am introspective af. Also, probably because I haven’t felt the touch of a man in quite some time so I have no choice but to continuously question what love actually feels like. Hahaha, it’s fine. I’m fine. Please tell my mom I’m fine.

Anyway, love. What a concept, huh? You can look at a stranger across the bar and then – bam – fast forward a string of dates and feelings you didn’t ask for and suddenly you actually care about this person’s day, if they’re getting enough vitamins, if saying I love you during sex still counts.

To me, love means a whole mess of things. You’ve got the the traditional stuff: commitment, support, dedication, an understanding that Netflix and chill literally means we have to watch this documentary, seriously Adam, I’ve been waiting for it come out for months now, we can fool around when it’s over I promise.

It also means the cinematic stuff that I pretend I don’t still secretly want. The leg pop during a kiss. The swelling of orchestra music even though there’s no orchestra present. The heart going all Olympic and flipping every time you touch each other. Passion. An excitement that, though the initial honeymoon phase might not last forever, keeps showing up. Reinvents itself. Like, even after you’ve had sex in nearly every different position and seen each other get food poisoning, you still want to bone. Sorry. Bone is a terrible word. Forgive me.

Love encompasses so much. It’s hard to narrow down just one simple way to describe it.

But if I had to, if you were to put a gun to my back (uh, why though?) and yell, “TELL US WHAT LOVE IS RIGHT NOW!” I’d be forced to give you this.

Love is never watching an episode of your shared TV show without each other.

And I know, we’re all about instant gratification. We click and stream and literally have groceries ordered TO OUR DOOR in under an hour. We are becoming programmed to want what we want the very second we want it.

But love? Oh man, love takes time. It takes two people with different brains and different needs deciding, “I love you, you fucker, so I guess I’m going to think about what might make you happy instead of just me.”

There is a country song my mom used to play constantly when I was a kid. I could look up who sings it, but that would require 5 seconds of time I do not want to invest. Remember, I told you. We’re an impatient generation.

This country song is a lovely country lady singing about love and one line is (I think), “I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden.” That yes, love is going to be rocky on occasion and flowers can die. No, not can die. Flowers will die. Even if you had a rose garden, those roses are going to wither away eventually. Ah, love.

You can’t promise a rose garden. You can’t promise perfect days and perfect nights and that things won’t ever get tough.

But you can promise one thing.

You can promise me that you will wait until I am home so we can watch Grace and Frankie together. That’s love. That’s how I’ll know it’s real.