Love is in the air. I can feel it, or is it just that I’m frozen and feeling things I want to feel out of longing? It was a pretty cold January!
The month of February holds a lot of interesting things for all of us. The Winter Olympics is one of my favorites and the month is also going to start off with the Super Bowl right here in our metro area.
After that we have Valentine’s Day with the idea of romance and matters of the heart being pretty strong in this month’s editorial. Our articles discuss adolescent romantic relationships, offer a delicious recipe for sweetheart brownies, and give advice on how you can help girls to leave an abusive relationship. With a lot of territory to cover, our writers have contributed wonderfully informative pieces.
Every time I write this column for our February issue I think about love and all the different kinds of love there are. I think about the love we all feel for our children and how profoundly it affects the rest of our lives.
I saw a play last night about a man and a woman who meet and know almost instantly the kind of passion and connection we all dream of. They have found their soul mate in each other but it is too late. She is already married and the mother of two youngsters and the truth is that unless she leaves her life and her family and runs off with him, there is no hope for their love to go any further.
She doesn’t leave. They have four days together and then her family returns and she melds back into her life, into the responsibilities and love she has for her children and for her husband. He leaves and they never meet again.
She made a choice. For her the needs of her family and the responsibilities she took on offer no out, nor does she realistically feel they could or should. She had the four days and in those days she knew/experienced a love that would stay with her for the rest of her life.
The truth is that having children, being a parent, changes your life, your priorities, and your essentials. Nothing is every the same. One has a new normal. Even when they’re grown, you are still their parents. They are just older and need you less and for different things.
It’s a great thing this parent love. It’s a profound joy most of the time and some of the time a big headache, but it does become your new normal and it affects your whole life for all of it, or it should.
Have a great month and stay warm. We shall see what the groundhog says about the arrival of spring. It always comes eventually.
Thanks for reading.
