In my life I've only loved three men. Make that four. Well, maybe five, tops. Anyways, in every instance of love I have found that getting out of love has been more difficult than falling in love.

The image of a fly on flypaper trying to fly away comes to mind. Or a Mexican Creeper. That's what Chip, my-first-love-with-the-soft-lips, called me when he broke up with me. "A beautiful Mexican Creeper."

"What is a Mexican Creeper?" I asked my Grandma Dorothy, one of the world's smartest gardeners.

"It's that pretty pink vine growing across the street," she said. "Very hardy. It has heart-shaped leaves. The roots are terrible, though; squeezes the life out of anything it grows around."

(Oh, Chip, wherever you are: that memory still hurts today.)

To quote Lady Laura Troubridge's 19th century journal, "If I had a pistol I would have shot him--either that or fallen at his feet. There is no middle way when one loves."

I have never loved moderately. I never will. Guess there were too many romance novels in my teenage years: My Grandma Emily did not drive and I would bring her stacks of paperbacks from the library. We would discuss our romantic literary finds. Always, my darling 70 year-old Grandma wanted "hot ones." (Yeah, this passion stuff definitely is genetic...)

So, I won't apologize for being a hopeless romantic. I love roses, chocolate-covered strawberries, and champagne; dancing and wishing on falling stars. The poetry of John Keats delights me. Give me a mushy movie anytime. And Johnny Depp and Bruce Springsteen make me swoon.

Yes, falling in love is easy. Falling out of love is difficult, nearly impossible... But would I have it any other way?

As Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda explained, "I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way."

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