I Don't Need "Happily Ever After" or a "Knight-In-Shining-Armor" - My Most Romantic Memories

I have an unwavering faith that there IS such a thing as true love - not the fairy tale, "Knight-In-Shining-Armor" kind, but one where you can be the truest version of yourself and are loved because of it - not in spite of it; a love filled with respect and adoration and a passion that comes from deep in your soul.

Perhaps I live in a naive fantasy land for believing in its existence, but the truth is that I HAVE FELT that love before... I know it exists; perhaps even been blessed by having felt and experienced it many times before...

I remember watching a movie with my boyfriend my junior year in high school and remarking out loud,

"That is such CRAP - not real life at all! That stuff only happens in the movies!"

That weekend while I worked in the department store at the mall, I turned around with my arms full of clothes from the fitting rooms and literally gasped out loud as I saw him walking towards me with the same three dozen, long stem, red, Colombian Roses, in his arms that we had seen from the movie.

He came up to me and gently kissed me and said,

"Don't be such a skeptic!"


At such a young age in the relationship spectrum, I had already begun to question the existence of genuine romance.

As the years have past, I've learned that romance is not always about grand gestures, as much as it is about small moments that stay forever engraved in my heart and memory...


I have been blessed every summer with the ability to remember my first date in the most magical way...

On the first dusk that it's warm enough to sit on the deck and watch the last flecks of the setting sun paint gorgeous strokes of purples and reds across the horizon, when the breeze is still warm and pleasurable, as the light of day slowly starts to dimmer...

I can feel it in the air even before it happens. I just close my eyes and say a little prayer of thanks, knowing that when I open them again, I'll see it...

It won't happen immediately as my eyes adjust to the changing light around me, but they're always there...

The fire flies...

... like little matches lighting the lawn and the lines of tree trunks.

I had never seen fire flies before that hot, humid, Georgia night. I noticed them dancing over the lawn next to the restaurant. When I see them now, it does more than just create a memory, it's like a jolt through my body that makes all of my senses come ALIVE in recollection!

...The bold colors of green and red of El Vaquero Mexican Restaurant, the tingle of salt on my tongue from the homemade chips on the table, the sound of his voice as he ordered in Spanish, having taught himself the language with that confident, almost arrogant smirk on his face and the sparkle of his eyes as he looked at me with a comfortable understanding that is hard to find in any part of your life, let alone as a teenager in a small town... The touch of his hand.

The fire flies...

The first sight of them takes me back to that first date with a boy who I shared an incredible connection with, a moment of happiness and goodness and hope.

That special time in your life when you live just for that moment - not knowing that some day it would just be a beautiful memory ...


But love doesn't have to have magical fire flies or deep red roses to be memorable...

My most romantic moment was full of laughter and glee...

My boyfriend and I had been dating a few weeks when I went on a week-long cruise that I booked before we started dating.

I had booked it as a much needed getaway after several months of illness and treatments.

We pined for one another incessantly!

My first night back from the trip as we laid together in his bachelor pad, he looked at me, desiring me, adoringly,

"Want me to turn of the lights?" he whispered lovingly.

"No baby, I'm okay," I replied.

"Want me to light up a couple of candles?"

"No baby, I'm okay."

"... GREAT! 'Cause I don't have any candles!

Perhaps I can burn a paperback for you!?

I'll put it in an ashtray, so we don't burn the place down!..," his natural seriousness in contemplating the absurdity made it all the funnier!

I burst into uncontrollable giggles as he continued...


"The PILOT light! We can light the STOVE! That's ROMANTIC!"

Tears covered my face in laughter!


"Wait! We can't make love next to the stove - the cat's litter box is in the kitchen!

That is NOT ROMANTIC!" he exclaimed as he finally grabbed me close to him as I melted into his arms...

I peeled myself away from him long enough to take a scrap sheet of paper from his nightstand and scribble our dialogue that night so that I would never forget the joy and comfort and love that I felt that night as we made love, thankful not to be laying next to the cat's litter box, by the light of the stove!