love, romance, and the unraveling

When I stopped entertaining Romance,
Love showed up instead.

My own.

And it tore my life apart.

I find there's a difference between Love and Romance that gets confused.

Romance is the one that usually feels good and is exciting even when it doesn't.
Love is the one that's challenging, heavy and more enduring.

Love requires a steep investment, comes with emotional risk and precedes grief.
Romance requires a low investment, mimicking high stakes—
yet begetting superficial losses.

The term 'Love addiction' should really be called romance addiction since it's never love that's being referred to.
In fact, I don't think that 'love' and 'addiction' can apply towards the same thing simultaneously.
Unlike romance.
And why?

Because romance is affirming.
Love is deconstructing.

I was a romance addict for years before my body gave out.

Celibacy wasn't a moral choice and it didn't come with any fanfare.
In fact, it came with a loss of community, relationships and my entire sense of feeling anchored where I was.

When I took romance off the pedestal, it undid the very scaffold of my identity and started revealing who I really am.

Love, being the harder of the two is somehow still the less exhausting.
Romance requires constant maintenance—
of the relationship and of the ego holding it up.

I believe romance is a beautiful enhancement to love where it already exists.

But if you don't love yourself, you'll mistake the decoration of the room for the air.

So tonight I'm asking myself,
How many romantic relationships have I had, versus how many loving ones?