When I'm No Longer Young and Beautiful

Through the joys of online dating, I found myself sitting on a couch in a small house in Spanish Fork late on Saturday night. I was at least 3 inches taller than everyone in the room (including my date) and the only person not wearing sweats. Perhaps it was for these reasons that when I walked in, everyone just stared at me for several stunned seconds rather than greeting me.

After making homemade pizza (haven't done that on a date since college) and watching several quarters of football, everyone decided they wanted to watch a movie. Everyone but me, but since I was the only one in the room not related to each other, I felt my opinion probably didn't hold much weight. They plugged in The Great Gatsby, which was actually just as fascinating as I remember the book being, but I was struck by a song on the soundtrack. It's by Lana Del Rey, and she asks the question, "Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?"

I'm fascinated by the different ways people choose to love each other. Stephenie Meyer said in a book that love can be given for free, earned through time and hard work, or stubbornly and heart-breakingly unattainable. I suppose I've experienced my share of each of those kinds. We are a culture obsessed with love. When I'm going through a breakup, I have to stop listening to music completely, because essentially all music has to do with the existence or nonexistence of love. We write about it, talk about it, watch movies about it, read books about it, and search for it constantly. And yet, it means wildly different things to different people. Love can mean acceptance, a challenge, kindness, lust, charity, risk, romance and a myriad of other things depending on the person and the context.

I've always had shining examples of love in my life. My family loves me unconditionally. They love me when I'm flying high. They love me when I've fallen to my lowest. They love me enough to be interested in my life. They love me enough to correct me. More than anything, they love be enough to truly believe that I am capable of anything and everything.

Perhaps that is why my view on love is pragmatic and emotional all at the same time. Emotional in the sense that I want to find the kind of romantic love that people write books about - the kind where it feels like a part of you resides in the other person, and vice versa. And pragmatic because I believe that kind of love comes through time and work. "To say that one waits a lifetime for his soulmate to come around is a paradox. People eventually get sick of waiting, take a chance on someone, and by the art of commitment become soulmates, which takes a lifetime to perfect." No one is perfect - I'll never find a perfect man, and even if I did, he certainly wouldn't want to date me. But I can't wait to find the man that will be willing to choose to work with me, every day.

It's not about being young and beautiful - those things fade quickly and life takes their place. "Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove.... It is an ever fixed mark which looks on tempests and is never shaken." I have so many people I love deeply. We are not perfect in each others' eyes. We have seen each other at our best; we have seen each other at our worst. We have laughed and cried and laughed while we we cried. We talk about the trivial and the profound. We buoy each other up, comfort and mourn together, and rejoice in each others' success. It's not always pretty . . . but it's a beautiful ride.