Like most, I didn’t find true love right away. In fact, if you would have asked me what true love is, I would have laughed at the term just by the sound of it, but after many relationships in my youth, some good, most bad, I began to wonder if there was such a thing. To be honest, most of my early failed relationships had more to do with my drinking than anything else. I was first and foremost an alcoholic, so until I dealt with that aspect of my life, not much was going to change. I was stuck in a toxic spiral and making the same mistakes, until I finally got sober and began to see the error of my ways. Sobriety, like love, requires humility, and an ability to see one’s mistakes. It also takes sensitivity and empathy and trust. In short, it requires that one begin to live a life of integrity, and self-worth which are the foundations of any lasting relationship with oneself or others. In other words, I wouldn’t have been able to find love without first finding myself, and treating myself with the same love and respect I needed to treat others. So if true love exists, it means living a life based in truth, and continuing to follow this truth wherever it takes you, and I was lucky enough to have it take me to a partner who was also willing to live the same kind of truth with me, So, dear readers, when I talk about true love, this is what I am talking about, and even thought it may not sound as romantic as it does in fairy tales, believe me, it is the only kind of romance that lasts.
