Let me venture another unpopular opinion. Love is real, it is amazing, and it can carry you through a lifetime of ups and downs. It is recognizing—not imagining, but actually recognizing—yourself in the other person, and discovering that this other human being knows your hidden, often embarrassing self almost as well as you do … and doesn’t give a damn about it. Love is stumbling into your spiritual and psychological doppelgänger.

Although I had “fallen in love” numerous times over a span of nearly fifty years, like most people, I really had no idea what I was talking about … so, again like most people, I also repeatedly fell out of love. I didn’t immediately understand that I had found it when I met this other person … but gradually, one “omg, you know exactly what I am thinking” moment after another, it became clear. That was twenty years ago and the feeling has only grown deeper, intensifying with every conversation that we have, every day that we spend together. That person doesn’t need my permission to do anything, nor do I need his. We do not own one another—but we do know each other in a way that I had never imagined was possible. Jealousy seldom raises its ugly head and in two decades we have never actually had a fight.

I rarely write about love because I have read enough about it to realize that very few people will ever experience it … and I have no advice to offer, no balm to give. If you are one of the few, be thankful for that gift every day, for it is something truly rare.