Tricky love and trusty time

Often, our car rides start and end with a genre battle (our son against me) between EDM and my Random playlist on Spotify. Neither of us ever really wins because every song is interrupted by the "big guuurl" (the baby):

"Mama, what's the name of that song?"

"Mama!! I talkin' to you!"

"Mama! 'Scuse me. I need to tell you somethin'!"

"Mama! Play "I knew you were trouble." (Swifty from the crib!)

But these last couple of days music has been replaced with some intense conversations. Prime example: our 4-year-old wanted to know why Dolly Parton was so sad she had to pretend rivers flow backward and the truth is a lie. That's right. The conversation about why she was incorrectly describing the sky as green and the grass as blue was very last year. Now she needed to understand why? Why was she so sad?!

"Her heart was broken." I offered, knowing that would not end the questions.

"How? How could she break her heart?" She continued.

"She thinks the love of her life left her," I was cringing. With good reason. Now even our son was engaged.

"What? What does that even mean?" he pondered...and I had to answer. I'm generally proud of their inquisitive minds and don't like to shy away from the hard questions; as if they would let me. But this one was a level expert, on love, no less.

I didn't (I don't!) want to tell my kids what I think is some fairytale nonsense about there being one person for you out there. A charming princess or a prince charming that will be your one true love.

But what's the alternative? They're not exactly the demographic my address on love as commitment is intended for. Here's what I would have shared if they were 17, 16, and 14 instead of 5, 4, and 2:

One true love? Yeah, right! Dolly was singing about being heartbroken because when love ends, it's hard and it hurts. But she was right to fake it till she made it because there's no such thing as "the one." Love will come again if you are open to it. The love of your life will wake up every day, and decide to stay and love you. The love of your life will be the person you decide, each day, to stay with and love. Sure, attraction and other things, most of them fleeting, might be the original appeal, but from what I've seen and experienced, they're rarely the reason a love becomes the love of a lifetime. And here's the thing about love; like smiles, it's contagious. Just as I've noticed it's rare for a random stranger to not return a smile, I think the more a person loves you, the longer they stay and show you love, the harder it becomes for you to walk away, and the easier it becomes to stay and love them back. So with a little luck and a lot of patience, you might run into that person that not only appeals to you but is truly committed to you so that when you're less than appealing, they stay and love you anyway.

So what did I actually respond to my 3 little investigators?

"The love of your life is someone that you love so much that you can't imagine living life without them."

Someday I'll have to share the rest and, if the past seven years are any indication, their dad will be by my side as I explain my point of view, in hopes of getting them through their first heartbreak.