I’ve been pondering the difference between love and lust – the mass of phermones, and organic chemicals that turns your brain to mush, and your legs to rubber. I’ve loved a few men, and think I’ve even been in love briefly once or twice. I’ve been hurt, helped negotiate a few divorces in private practices, and watched my strong Mother not compromise on the love of her life.
I had the privilege to have breakfast last weekend with a couple in love. He’s one of those military types- posted overseas to fight bad-guy terrorists. She describes how a piece of her is simply missing when they are apart. She wakes up in a cold sweat worried (and rightly so) for his personal safety when he’s on mission. He watched her like she was the only women in the world. However together they were magic. Real magic. The physical attraction between them was palatable. The emotional longing oh-so-intense. They are both a bit over 49, so this isn’t puppy love, but a real, gut twisting, grown-up kind of love. I think great relationships are a gift to everyone else around them, and it’s the eye gaze, the walks in the rain, the way your body rises up with touch, the way you think about them when they are on the other side of the world that for this couple anyway, separates the wheat from the chaf. A real gift.
I think you can have love without lust, and any bar on a Saturday night will tell you that you can have lust without love, but together the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I long said that I wanted to be old driving fast cars, wering outrageous colours swearing alot, with a few, much younger, latin lovers. I left breakfast thinking that what I really want as I get older is a love for the ages like my friend and her soldier. Sentimental from me, The Orgy Queen, but resonating nonetheless.