Fantasy? Who needs it

Mr. Ritchie died yesterday. I didn't know him very well, but I read his blog everytime he posted. He was close with my friends and so I was often in his presence and could see through his writings and the short time I spent with him that he was a very kind person. The last post on his blog was written by his wife, who had been by his side for almost 45 years, through health and sickness. I can't imagine being in her position, losing her best friend and partner after all these years. To be alone, when you planned your lives to grow old together. If I ever grow old, I hope I go first, losing someone you truly love at 20 is something incredibly painful and a daily reminder. It must be heartwrenching when you've grown up with this person, raised children, and built a life. Or at least it should be, that is the definition of true love, the kindof love that endures even when the person you once loved needs you to take care of them at their worst. 

I would say I'm actually not a romantic, I don't believe in a fairy tale kind of love with roses and sonnets and people who just fall into each others arms and live happily ever after.  I believe in love, and loving others but usually it comes from the companionship, its based on being someone's best friend, the trust that gets built overtime and the loyalty you foster. Those kinds of things are only tested over time, because sometimes people's priorities change, someone becomes a different person, or someone becomes too selfish. I am skeptical of anything  that comes too fast or too easily or too deep.  

Believe it or not, I actually hate romantic comedies  or anything really formula where the people end up together in the end. Everything except for The Notebook, but even then the last few scenes with the beds and the waking up and the geese motif... not going to lie while everyone else was crying we laughed... really a geese motif. I bring this up because I refuse to watch, read, or experience anything "Twilight". I may be too cynical, but this is who I am. 

This whole aversion to fantasy I think began when I was little, I always read historical fiction, biographies, or illustrated classics when I was little. I never got into Harry Potter, I read the first few and just didn't like them.  I have never been one for any sort of Lord of the Whats a McCall-it, Chronicle's of Wherever, etc. Not to say I don't have an active imagination, but I tend to think the world and people are far more complex then anything that needs to be made up. The world is full of true love stories, ones that endure time, that are no fantasy. They may not have these epic displays of love, but its those people who enjoy each other's company almost everyday. That's all I want, to be with someone who can stand me.