Some thoughts: The cliché rules of love

People keep talking like he's no good for me. They try applying these rules to my life, telling me how I should live as if they know my life, what I've been through and what I want.

I have to wonder how people expect these cliché rules to apply to every life, as if everyone has one-size-fits-all dreams in their deepest of hearts. Between what people tell me and what tradition tries to entrench, I swear I would be single and miserable for the rest of my life if society had their way.

Today I was told I should plan out my life and "make some goals" for my life before settling down and getting married. They're forgetting that I did my two years in college for journalism just to try relentlessly for the following year or so after that to try and get a job in my field only to discover that there are few if any jobs in journalism. Even at small town newspapers, I get told I don't have enough experience. But I'll never get experience if no one will hire me. I have applied for jobs from Nova Scotia to Vancouver. So when the opportunity arose for me to snatch my dream job in my home town even that slipped away from me. It's a frustrating rut I have found myself in that is beyond my control. No one can say I haven't tried. But they sure imply it.

So I tried to live by the rule of "sort out your career before settling down." I refuse to go back to post-secondary school because it'll be more time and money I waste. Instead, I did focus on the dream I want- to be a full-time writer. It is a career goal I have set. People just don't take it seriously. I am lucky that he at least understands my dreams. As another creative mind, he knows the feeling. He has been working on his musical aspirations for years. He watched me crash and burn when the reality hit that my journalism career wasn`t going to work out. He still stands beside me no matter how frustrated or depressed it makes me.

Others say I'm "rushing in." But what happened to "when you know, you just know"? The problem with the cliché rules of love is that they all contradict each other. The people who recite these rules weren't there for that first kiss at the Greyhound bus depot. They didn't see the intensity in his eyes when we first caught sight of each other or the relief of finally being in each other's arms. I knew by just that look that we'd rewrite the book.

They weren't there the night I discovered his deepest secret. I could have gotten out of his car and walked away right then but I sat and listened as he talked and cried. Everyone makes mistakes. No one is perfect. Other cliché rules that most people seem to forget.

They weren't there the day my mother had a stroke and I got angry at the things leading up to it. He held me and still somehow made me smile again. They weren't there when the reality of her health condition hit me and I had an emotional breakdown. He held me and wouldn't let me go until I couldn't cry anymore. They weren't there for every time he wrote me each of the nine songs he did for me.

So they can tell me all the rules they want. At the end of every day, it's not those rules that matter. Love isn't about settling down, getting married, babies and bills and change. It's about having someone who is crazy enough to go on every strange and epic adventure you go on, someone who will be there for you as often as you are there for them. Love is about getting back what you give and continuing to give as much as you want to receive in return. I wouldn't have my life without him. The rules of love? There are no rules except for the ones you make between each other. Those are the ones you live by, not the ones society throws in your face and stuffs down your throat. They are your own rules.