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What you are to me has no ending, unless you can understand what forever really means. A.R. Asher, Poet True love lasts forever. We all believe that don’t we? If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be gobbling up romance novels where everyone falls in love and lives happily ever after. Or binging on Hallmark movies like Christmas Class Reunion. Or listening to all those sweet love songs on our playlists. One of my favorites is Taylor Dayne’s I’ll Always Love You. Remember that one? Gotta love that late-80's hair, right? Anyone else miss MTV videos? Did anyone not know that MTV actually used to play videos? We all want what Taylor is singing about, don’t we? You are the one that I’ve been searching for. You are my everything. Tell me, who could ask for more? Yes, please. Pretty please! Give me that! But while real love is forever, the way it’s portrayed in books and on screen isn’t. Ready for an example? Try this passage from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, written in 1847. I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you. You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel–I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you–and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one. What do you think? It probably depends on your perspective. If you’re a lover of the classics, you’re swooning as you visualize Mr. Rochester proclaiming his love of Jane. The rest of us? And I include myself in this group. We're not swooning. This scene starts out pretty good. I have for the first time found what I can truly love. Nice opener, Mr. Rochester. Unfortunately, you lose me when you claim you are bound to me with a strong attachment. And then you go completely off the rails at a solemn passion is conceived in your heart. I’m a lot of things, buddy, but solemn isn’t one of them. Not many women want their lover to call them solemn. Beautiful? Smart? Sexy? Yeah. Solemn? No, thank you. And that last line, about us fusing together? Mr. Rochester, are you talking dirty to me? I think we can agree, Romantics, that while true love is eternal, the way we write about it is always changing. Many of us would be hard to slog through Bronte after a long day at work. I pay better attention when expressions like solemn passion and kindling in pure, powerful flame aren’t being strung together. By now you’re probably wondering why I’m writing about this. It really has nothing to do with Charlotte Bronte. It has everything to do with General Hospital.  Yep, the TV soap. And General Hospital has been jumping into my timeline a lot the past few weeks as they celebrate their 60th anniversary. Do you watch? Did you ever? I did, back in the mid-1980’s. Paul did, too. While in college. He tells about having a class that started ten minutes after each GH episode ended. Everyone was arriving late, so the professor pushed the start time back an extra ten minutes. That’s how popular General Hospital was in the early 1980’s. And much of that popularity is because of one super-couple. Do you remember their names? I’ll give you a minute…. Yep. Luke and Laura. And today is their wedding anniversary. Forty-one years. Happy Anniversary, Luke and Laura. A soap-lovers website did a poll earlier this year and Luke and Laura are STILL the number one super-couple in soap history. Forty-one years later. Now, the tough question – do you recall the circumstances that brought them together? Many people don’t. I didn’t. Until Paul reminded me. Luke sexually assaulted Laura. It happened at the disco he managed. Forty-one years wasn’t all that long ago, and the thought that writers wrote and producers produced – and we as viewers watched and accepted – such a storyline seems impossible to believe today. Imagine that happening today. Viewers would revolt. Advertisers would drop the show and maybe the entire network. And for good reason! But we’re talking about 1981. And accept it we did. Many of us even stopped our lives to keep up with everything Luke and Laura did for the next several years. Just as thousands of avid readers in the nineteenth century hung on every written word of Jane Eyre and her contemporizes. Yes, true love might be eternal, but how we portray it is always changing. And aren’t you glad? Love, Robin Your thoughts and comments are welcome! Leave them below or on our Facebook page! 
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