What I learned about love from Being Love Bombed

It was January, and back home where I lived, the roads were paved with ice, but I was somewhere new, not so far away, but in a world that felt completely different. I sat on my lounger by the pool, reading ‘Live Your Life’ by Amanda Kloots. I felt the warm sun and cool Caribbean breeze on my face and chest. I looked up at him every now and then in awe, his deep blue eyes, sun-kissed complexion, and thick gray hair blowing in the Caribbean breeze as it swept across his face. His body was so sexy. She was so sexy. It seemed as if all was right in the world. I was safe. I was happy, for the first time in a long time, until I felt my world come crashing down as he uttered the horrible words – “I don’t think this is working anymore.” It was the official and blind end of our love story, but was it love?

I wondered how I fell so deep at lightning speed. Did I really know this person or did I just see them as they were? Did he really know me or see me for what I was?

I reasonably met him when I was hungry for attention, praise, admiration and romance. Shortly after we met, he offered me all of this on a golden platter. He told me I was a gift from God and reminded me how lucky we were to find each other. Whenever I wasn’t there by his side, I would get texts about how much he missed me or how his space felt empty without me. We started talking about the future that would never manifest as I had hoped. After only a few dates together, he was flying me in first class luxury to the Caribbean very quickly. This would be the first of many trips and memories we would make. Behind each door of our hotel suite, my path was lined with rose petals, platters of wine, fruit, cheese and a bottle of champagne. No matter where we were, every room had a direct and panoramic view of the ocean with some of the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets I had ever seen.

I was definitely convinced that I had found myself forever. But, alas, it was only the romantic ideal we were all sold. The blueprint we’ve been conditioned to believe — that this is exactly what love is supposed to look like.

I was, in fact, a victim of this idealized version of love. I was the victim sold because this person showed me exactly who he was and that this was all I needed to create a happy life together. On some level, I even felt entitled to his gestures, romantic escapades, and fiery passion. I had spent years drowning in sadness and uncertainty about the monotony of my previous marriage and having this new romance made me feel alive again.
But I learned the hard way that real love doesn’t require us to be seduced by an ideal. Real love requires us to live and thrive in our daily lives together, even when they aren’t always pretty or magical. Because living in the ideal eventually fades, we soon learn that we cannot survive there long term.

Real love does not require us to save or be saved. Instead, it allows us to show up in our truth and give someone else a chance to show up in theirs. We let each other see us exactly as we are.

Love takes time to develop, while ideals keep us locked in a single obsessive and infatuated love phase.

So maybe the goal is not just to fall in love but to stay in love. To be able to maintain something for a long time, beyond the seduction of the honeymoon phase, but the phase of everyday life, instead of being sold by a fantasy of what it is not.

Because all that true love requires is a sacred place to show up in our truth, a place where we can be honest, beautiful, messy, and flawed, but still accepted because there is nothing more charming, passionate, or seductive from offering ourselves to another, just as we are.