All you need is Love

Nothing you can know that isn’t known.
Nothing you can see that isn’t shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.
It’s easy…..All you need is love

John Lennon The Beatles  1967

      

All you need is love.  My husband is always saying this, and if you know him, you would say this is [for him] a perfectly normal response to most things in life!  I’m personally thinking about love for a few reasons…

 The first, being the 50 year anniversary of the Beatles coming to America and how desperately America needed the shot of enthusiasm, laughter, silliness and amazing talent that the Beatles brought with them.  God Bless Ed Sullivan.  He is one of the unsung heroes of American culture.  Perhaps he knew the Beatles were just what America needed to bring us out of our mourning period of President Kennedy’s death.  On Sunday evening, February 9^th, 1964 at 8:00 pm the Beatles entered the American living room and changed the face and sound of music forever.  Coincidently, that February 9^th was also my birthday and I chose to have my cake and eat it too with Ed and the Beatles in front of our black and white TV. 

The Beatles were just what we needed, and change the American and world culture they did.  The impression the Beatles left on all of us and future baby boomers is almost immeasurable.  Before their break up, in 1970, the Beatles penned over 200 songs. I am sure there is a count of how many times the word love was used.  I am always in awe of the lyrical poetry of songwriting- it can be so profound.  In an earlier email, I talked about Bob Dylan and the lyrics of Forever Young.  To me, there are a couple of songs that should be the anthem of our generation.  Forever Young is one of them; along with All you need is Love. 

Just imagine [Imagine – another Beatles anthem nominee] how we feel when we are in love.  The endorphins are surging through us with such speed that we forget to eat.  We forget where we are going. We are on a drug-induced high and the drug is love.  It does not matter your age.  Love doesn’t know how to count.  Love doesn’t care how you look on the outside – love is blind.  Love is only concerned about one thing…your heart.  When you are in love your heart is bursting with happiness.  That happiness flows out of you…no matter your age.

Now this brings me to my other reason for thinking about love.  One of my best friends was recently fixed up on a blind date, and it was one of those blind dates that just came out of nowhere…a friend of a friend she met once thought of her and asked a friend for her number to pass along – you know the rest of the story. 

My friend is 73, divorced twice, living in an “over 55” community with a busy life of tennis, cards and volunteer work.  Her priority, when moving into the community a year ago, was to find girlfriends!  Finding a man was not even on the agenda.  She figured at 73 her love life was over.  Besides, she had been on her own most of her adult life so beginning a new life in a new city as a single woman was nothing new. Anyway, the blind date called and they met for lunch and it went really well.  He called again and they had dinner.   He kept calling, and they kept going out.  The process was so easy and comfortable for them both that they were totally unprepared to fall in love so quickly.  

He is one of the community’s “most eligible” widowers.  Good looking, tallish, slim, active, no endless medical banter; he knows how to dress and he has his hair!  He was successfully retired for the last 10 years with a very full social life, until his wife, of 35 years, became ill and passed away.  He had just recently come onto the “market” and had been fixed up on a succession of dates, none of which were working out for him. 

On one first date he was asked if they were going steady now as he said goodnight to her at the front door!  He finally told his friends “no more fixing me up.”  But alas good friends [and the universe] don’t give up and there was one more fix-up in his future.  So when his friends mentioned my friend he said “what the hell, okay – just this last one – I’ll call her.”

To me dating has always been like holding an open house, especially if the house is furnished.  You come in, walkthrough, chat up the agent.  Throughout the house, all of the best things are on display.  Even though it looks great, there are things that you want to change.  Tear down a few walls, rip up the floor, and move the master to the sunny side of the house.  It is the same thing as dating someone.  You like the house/date.  You go back a few times.  You go out a lot.  You decide to buy it – get serious.  And all along you are planning those few changes.  Even though we know the best house buying/dating advice is to just live in it for a while, settle in, get to know the Chi of your new surroundings.  Over time, make the changes, or not.  In our hearts we know the soul of the house/date is good and we know we’ll be happy with this one. 

There seems to be a steady flow of positive Chi for our love birds.  My friend recently commented about how different love is this time around.  The outside distractions of kids and careers are behind them and they are able to focus more intently on each other, and it changes the whole dynamic of the relationship.  Everything is happening at warp speed.  Of course, there are a lot of unasked and unknown questions about their future.  Thankfully, my friend has a way of settling in and letting life take its course.  Don’t get me wrong.  She can obsess with the best of us, but her wisdom tells her to let go at some point and relax in her new surroundings. 

We laughed when she said, “will I still know how to kiss; what am I going to do about this body, this skin?  Do I have enough candles in the house?”  She goes on to say that one of the most interesting things is his adjustment to her independence.  She spent her early twenties and thirties raising two boys while maintaining a full-time career in fashion publishing/editorial.  She has always managed her own life, and her new man has always managed the lives of those around him, until now!  The merging of their two worlds has actually brought out the best in both of them.  He is relaxing into her independent ways, and she is letting down a few of the walls that independence and time can build around your heart.  For both of them, the word compromise has become a cornerstone of their new vocabulary.

So there you have it – watch out – when you least expect it love might be hiding just around the corner.  And because love is blind and doesn’t know how to count the years, you just might meet someone and feel sixteen again.  And who knew that to feel sixteen, “All you need is love!”

this post was originally released in 2014 on Platinum Boomer.