I don't know why the universe was created, but I know it's staggeringly beautiful. Maybe creation followed an overpowering call to bow in gratitude to something so utterly beautiful and wondrous, even if it was just an idea, that the only way to express it was to bring entire worlds into being. I can’t think of anything better to do with my time on earth than this: to be in love with my man, my one, and bring new worlds into being with the work I do. It’s a divine compulsion.

Auspiciously born on Valentine's Day, my significant other is a man who stepped out of time. I still often look at him and wonder where he came from, how he knows what he knows to walk the pillow talk. Poet, rebel, cosmologist and keeper of sacred knowledge, he showed me the scale of romance. Without him, my work wouldn't be possible. I call myself a romance expert because of him.

I knew very little about romance before I met him. Like many women, I wanted it but had no idea how to have it. What I had instead was love that started out for life, confidently and with great passion, but faded under the pressure of unmet needs, endless to-do lists, and old unattended pain passed down through generations.

Like many couples who come to my office, my husband and I were busy doing (and prioritizing) other things: work, children, career, keeping up the home, cleaning up messes. There was little romance. Somehow we must have thought love can go without and stay undiminished. It doesn't. I must have sensed it. One afternoon, I sit at a traffic intersection after picking up my kids from school. As I'm waiting for the light to turn green, a poem takes shape trying to make sense of what was missing:

One by one, the cars were passing by.
Another day was folding to retire
To join all others that have lost their spark and died
Like once-upon-a-time desires.

Her hands a puzzle on the steering wheel,
The light still red a few more moments,
She wondered if her life was real
Or missing pivotal components.

It made no sense; her bed was made,
The kids behind her healthy and a blessing,
And yet she felt there must be more to life than fade
Like every passing car into forgetting.

The light turned green; her evening chores were waiting.
But something told her she had yet to find
The answer she already was creating
As she drove on and left the road she'd memorized behind.

This was many years ago, and I'm not looking back. I found what I was looking for and I know now what it takes to keep it. "The most empowering relationships are those in which each partner lifts the other to a higher possession of their own being," writes Teilhard de Chardin. I had wanted this to be possible with my first husband. But we were ill matched and clueless. We were on different paths, and that's okay. I'm grateful for what it taught me. Thank you for your interest.