How do you define Romance? When people hear the word they often picture flowers, odes and sonnets, or elegant nights of dancing in formal dresses at a ball. Webster’s defines it first as a love story, and then in its second clarification it says, “an extravagant story or affair that lacks basis in fact or reality.” So if I’m reading this right, being romantic isn’t possible unless you find a way to suspend reality. I guess in a certain sense, that’s true.

Two days before Valentine’s I conducted an informal and unscientific poll of the women who were in the line around me at the grocery store. According to them, their husbands were probably going to send flowers or give them chocolate and a card for the Hallmark created holiday to commemorate love. I asked if they thought it was romantic, and each one of them laughed. “No,” the youngest one explained. “It’s an obligation they do because they think they have to.”

That conversation, while entertaining, left me wondering if it was possible to have real romance anymore. I arrived home, tired form a long day and my children came rushing up to welcome me home, remind me their basketball uniform was dirty and they needed it in forty minutes, and to tell me they needed help with their math homework. After that initial blast of chores was given to me, my husband walked over, told the boys to “scram and give your mother a minute to at least take her coat off.” After pulling off my boots I looked up and he was standing there with a smile and two cups of hot tea. A tilt of his head was an invitation to follow him to the home office.

After we climbed the stairs he pointed to the more comfortable of the two chairs and indicated I should sit there before putting a cup of tea on the table next to it. We sat down and he asked, “How was your day?” Giving me the chance to unload the things that had happened at the office that were very stressful and weighing heavily on my mind.

As I go back and look over the details of this very typical day in my life I have to admit, romance isn’t impossible, nor is it dead, it’s just completely misunderstood.

My husband isn’t perfect. He has habits that drive me crazy. He rarely makes up the bed, he is incapable of watching the television if he isn’t the one controlling the remote, and there is a chair in the corner of our room that he seems to think is the correct place to throw clothes instead of hanging them in the closet three feet away. However, he also has a knack for knowing when I’m upset or when I just need to chatter. He listens patiently, even when I know that down deep, the world of finance or non-profit management must bore him silly. He doesn’t complain or try to change the subject. He sits there because he knows until I get it out of my system, I can’t relax and think about anything else. He buys dark chocolate even though he prefers milk chocolate, because it’s my favorite. And when we share a pint of Cookie Dough ice cream, he will eat the vanilla ice cream around the dough so that I can have more of the sugary balls that I adore.

When we’re out together, he rarely opens my car door for me, but he always defers to me to give my order first in a restaurant, even if the waiter was looking at him. I can’t remember the last time he bought me cut flowers, but every spring, he buys my favorite kinds of blooms so that we can plant them together in the garden because he knows I like watching them grow all summer.

According to Hollywood or Harlequin he’s mediocre at best in the romance department, but I’ve decided that they’re wrong. Why would I waste time wishing for something that by definition doesn’t exist? I prefer the reality of sharing my life with someone who intentionally does things just because he knows I will like them and doesn’t wait for the calendar to tell him it’s time to do something thoughtful.

When he proposed to me nineteen years ago, he got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. After I said yes, he then kissed my hand and pledged, “If you marry me, I promise that you’ll never be bored.”

I remember sharing this with a friend who didn’t seem to know how to react. “It wasn’t very romantic,” she explained.

Maybe not to you, but I hate the idea of daily doses of routine, and I knew that in marrying him I was promising to spend my life with a man who would actively look for things we could do that we’d enjoy, small and large adventures that would add variety to our lives. I saw it as the sweetest promise he could have made and one he has absolutely kept.

Is a cup of tea and wing back chair romantic? I’ve decided it is to me. It was nice to receive a card with a touching verse written in fancy script for Valentine’s Day. But, when I look back over time and think of how I know I’m loved, my mind is flooded with the little things that have been done in abundance much more than the rare more socially acceptable gestures of romance.

Is having my car cleared of snow so that I don’t have to scrape it at six in the morning before work romantic? Is having windshield wiper fluid added because he knew the roads were salty and he wanted me to have what I needed for a safe drive a declaration of love? Admittedly, neither of these would work in the movies, but I don’t live on the silver screen. I live in a little house in a small town in New England. I live with a man who has flaws, but who loves me enough to remember me and think of things he can do to make my life easier. Not only that, but he recognizes when I buy red grapes instead of green that I’m thinking of him. He knows when I drag out the iron to press his dress shirts that he is loved. And, hopefully he will know that when he reads this blog I think he hangs the moon, even though I didn’t purchase him an expensive bauble for the 14th of February.

For my readers, I would wish you a life filled with romance. Not the way Disney princesses get it, but in the little ways that build a lifetime of devotion. And, I hope that whoever is providing you with this romance does so with the understanding that chocolate can be a gift at any time…you don’t have to wait until boxes have Cupid on them.

Happy Reading!