Why Romance?

It’s Taco Tuesday, and Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift announced their engagement. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I’m one of those folks. Admittedly, I’m not a Swiftie superfan. Or even a fair-weather one. I’m somewhere in the middle, liking most of what I hear. Taylor’s talented and writes a damn fine pop tune. I dare anyone not to sing along to “You Need to Calm Down”. And if you do sing, I’ll never tell you you’re being too loud.

And Travis? He’s a hunky footballer with a wicked smile and enough balls to wear a goofy bucket hat. Nuff said.

Taylor’s life plays out on a national stage under the watchful eye of millions of people. Her love life and current love story are the stuff of romance novels. True fans can relive her heartbreak and feel her revenge by listening to her music. And Travis? He’s a hunky footballer with enough visibility and fame of his own, and the strength to handle his woman being a billionaire who can affect politics. Whoa! What’s not to root for?

I have delighted in watching their romance evolve. I know they’re real people with real lives, but I view them from afar as if they are characters in a story—the unlucky-in-love pop star and the hopeless romantic All-Star footballer who are knee-deep in the first phase of love. Trope city.

While technically there are five stages of love, a few morph and blend, feeling like three. More like groupings of time or the chapters of coupling. Phase one is the chemical phase. The “I can’t keep my mind or hands off you” phase. We ignore our friends, talk on the phone all night, and try questionable sexual positions because we’re showing off. In this phase, we do dumb things like wear uncomfortable underwear and remove hair in unsustainable ways, mostly to look sexy and be smooth while getting freaky. We’ll wear dodgy headwear because the other claims it’s fetching. We become the heart-eyed emoji. This phase sustains all others. Tayvis are at the apex of this phase.

Backing up a bit to the title of this article—why romance? This is my first article for my first blog, written for my first newsletter send. Whoop! Whoop! Snaps for me. Thank you for being here. Snaps for you, friend! Anyhoo, when writing my first manuscript, I got asked a couple of times why I chose to write romance. FWIW, I wasn’t a romance reader at this time. Reacher, Harry Bosch, and Kinsey Millhone are more my jam.

The answer didn’t fully solidify until Taco Tuesday, the day Tayvis flooded the internet with their happiness hormones. Oh, trust me, I had some stated reasons for choosing the genre, but they were subplots to the main story.

As some of you know, I went through something in 2022 and 2023. The big C. It gave me all the feels, and most of them weren’t awesome. Writing two characters, equally damaged, who could find each other attractive and lovable despite their inner and outer scars, was a healthy way to address my feelings about my metaphorically and physically carved-up body (and self-esteem). The processing was the subplot.

I walk every day. Gotta keep the cancer away. My mind either wanders or hyper focuses, and ideas come to me. Taco Tuesday, I contemplated the phase I’m in versus the phases left behind. I needed two real people, living like characters in a romance novel, to expose my motivation. Dots connected.

I’ve made it through phase two. Thankfully, because phase two is rough. A gauntlet. A test of all the ways love survives through the messy middle (as the douchebags in leadership like to call the part of a project they can’t get organized). Babies are born, bodies get soft, work gets hard, and hair gets thin or grows where it’s unwanted. We get tired in phase two, often due to the babies. So tired we sacrifice eating well, exercising properly, and shagging our partners with regularity, seeking sleep. Date nights need to be scheduled, if they happen at all. And conversation feels repetitive. The flame of phase one simmers at low heat on the least favorite burner of a well-worn stove. Reader, if you’re in phase two, remember to stir the contents of your pot so the love doesn’t evaporate. Or stick to the bottom.

Tayvis will hit phase two at some point in the future. And the delight I have for their story will shift to trepidation because babies and sports ball injuries change bodies and end careers. That hairy chest may look good now, but only due to the structure behind it. They run their gauntlet publicly, and while I’ll root for them to make it through, many will revel in their demise.

Phase three is where the rubber meets the road, and we learn what love really is. Sure, we think it’s the Zsa Zsa Zsu of phase one. But it’s not. Because the damage we did to ourselves in the surviving of phase two lingers like fish in a microwave. Bodies break down. Blood sugar and cholesterol go up. We learn that the thinning or unwanted hair problem is deeply rooted in our hormone levels. And not the phase-one fun ones that flood us with happiness. We shave our spouse’s hair before chemo makes it fall out, and we help dress the wounds that one of us is too squeamish to handle. For a week, we set aside all the white, yellow, and green Gummy Bears for our partner to eat as they prep for a colonoscopy, and giggle to learn of the selfie they posted on TikTok after coming out of anesthesia.

Phase three is asking how each other slept. Every. Damn. Morning. And listening to the answer because eventually it will be our turn to announce we only got up to pee twice and made it through another night without a sleep injury. Whoop! Whoop! This is the unsung love.

Our mortality is at the heart of phase three. We get a second wind. We try to undo the damage done to our bodies. We give a fuck again and try harder to keep death at bay, holding each other accountable—out of love, making our way back to one another with new appreciation from the lessons learned. The fire of phase one sustains the heat through the other phases. By phase three, it’s a steady, warming glow.

So, if processing my breast cancer reconstructions is the subplot for writing romance, what is my main one? The genre allows me to relive phase one—safely and with input. I get to embellish. Characters can say and do things that aren’t my jam, but that I wish were. Money’s not an issue. Heroines can be thin. Heroes can be famous. And neither has hair where it’s not wanted. I’m lucky to have the memories to draw from and a partner with the strength to handle his woman crafting lovers (hopefully) well enough that they feel as real as Taylor and Travis. By writing love, I get to reexperience the Zsa Zsa Zsu.