Dreamers vs. Realists: Magic or Toxic?

Many of the most exciting people are also the most dangerous. Reckless people can be detrimental to our health.  To what lows will they go to attain new heights? Because they've got the emotional range of a roller coaster, when they go down, they go down hard. Anyone in their path will be dragged along with them. When they're experiencing one of their highs, they can be nearly irresistible.

We are often drawn into relationships that perpetuate a pattern we are familiar with. We all pick our partners in life in hopes of getting the love we longed for and may not have gotten from our parents. Unfortunately, in our cleverness, we often pick partners who are reasonable facsimiles of our parents. Since we still need love and approval, we continue to try to get it from our partners just as we tried with our parents.

As I explore the sometimes toxic relationship between “Schoolmarms and Cowboys” It seems that what I’m actually looking at is the contrast between dreamers and realists. The realist and the dreamer are often to be the most unlikely of friends, polar opposites in fact, often standing in direct opposition from one another. Dreamers love to indulge in the land of “Imagine if…” They are “big picture” people with ambitious ideas and high hopes for radical outcomes and experiences in life. They live with their head in the clouds imagining and wishing for a better tomorrow. Unfortunately dreams don’t become a reality based on enthusiasm alone.

When it comes to relationships, dreamers are romantics. They are inspiring and encouraging people to be around and their “Land of Oz” mentality makes them contagious leaders. The difference between dreamers and realists is that dreamers recognize the change necessary for their desired outcome. Instead of wallowing in thoughts that reassert the limitations and tribulations that they’re experiencing they indulge on their dreams and desires and focus all their energies on what they passionately crave.

The realist, on the other hand, is much more concerned with the practical details. They pride themselves on having their feet firmly planted on the floor and their head in the real world.  They are practical thinkers and problem solvers, high achievers and highly productive. The realists have good intentions to bring constructive ideas and feedback to see forward movement, but they are often accused of being dream destroyers because of their profound ability to instantly identify potential obstacles and issues that can bring down a dream and smash it into a thousand pieces with one word!

Opposites attract, or so the saying goes, but at first glance this relationship seems doomed. The dreamer is constantly frustrated because he feels as though the realist is always negative. The realist is driven crazy by the unrealistic fantasy-like ideas of the dreamer. However, when the best aspects of these two characters are meshed together magic happens! When the dreamer can encourage the realist to lift her head a little higher and dream a little bigger and when the realist can encourage the dreamer to come back down to earth long enough to put some form and structure in place, the sky is the limit!  The result could be one very dynamic and successful partnership.  The best chance of seeming a dream fully realized is to get both aspects of these characters on board. And it is the hope of creating this magic that draws the two together like moths to a flame.

Unfortunately, the relationship can just as easily turn toxic. Dreamers are often narcissistic in that everything centers on their needs and wants. If you have been trained to put the needs of others above your own, you spend your time in service to your partner. The relationship begins to alter who you are and you lose control of your life. You become more invested in the relationship because you are serving your partner. Yet they grow less vested in the relationship and show less respect for your efforts. Each day you surrender a part of yourself in order to keep your toxic partner from jumping on the roller coasters and taking you on another emotional, toxic ride.  You begin to feel devalued. You get weaker and weaker until you don’t like who you have become.

 So why would anyone get caught up in this terrible situation in the first place?  Why wouldn’t they get out at the first sign that the relationship has turned toxic?  The easiest choice is to continue the relationship and hope that the other person changes. This is rarely successful, but the one most socially acceptable to previous generations of men and women caught in toxic relationships. It’s what perpetuates the myth of “Ozzie and Harriet” that we all lead lives of perfect harmony. The second is to attempt to minimize the damage that the relationship is causing by limiting contact, also known as “The Silent Treatment”, and trust that the other person will get the message. Neither of these methods of dealing with the situation has ever proven very successful.  The third, and definitely the most challenging, is to confront the issue and end the relationship in all forms.  This is also the most painful choice if ending the relationship involves children, uncertain finances and social pressure.

Dreamers and realists will continue to be attracted to one another as long as there is a chance that we can create the magic. But if the relationship turns toxic, we must be willing to cut our losses and move on.  Once we know why we make the choices we do, we can begin to constructively change our way of thinking about relationships and choose the healthiest option, rather than the most comfortable one.

Cleaning Closets

According to Psychology Today, everyone procrastinates sometimes, but 20 percent of people chronically avoid difficult tasks and deliberately look for distractions—which, unfortunately, are increasingly available. Procrastination in large part reflects our perennial struggle with self-control as well as our inability to accurately predict how we'll feel tomorrow, or the next day. Procrastinators may say they perform better under pressure, but more often than not that's their way of justifying putting things off.

I’ve never considered myself a procrastinator, but I have suddenly awakened to the fact that I’m actually quite good at it!  While I was working, it was easy to put off things around the house while I focused on meeting the deadlines at work.  Now, in this first year of retirement, I find that old habits are hard to break.  I should, for example, clean out closets and get rid of unwanted and unnecessary items, but every time I open the closet door, I can think of a dozen reasons to put it off.

The same demons have plagued my resolution to exercise more and lose weight.  Perhaps the two are related since my closet is filled with clothing of various sizes waiting for me to get back to a size where they will fit again.  The closet is filled with the ghosts of the person I used to be and it is a metaphor for my current battle with procrastination.

After spending last week doing research for a chapter of my book, I realized that I actually needed to do a complete rewrite of several chapters to tie up loose ends and present the time and events with accuracy. Instead of getting right to it while the information is fresh in my mind, I find myself looking for reasons to put it off. The book and the research have caused me to open the closet door to my past and examine skeletons I thought I had buried long ago. I have reflected deeply on the people and events that led me to the point where I am today and realized that I wasn’t always fair in my evaluation of the situation. The writing has forced me to change perspectives on my view of the past and look at things through the eyes of my characters.  In so doing, I have gained new insight and respect for their motivations, but it is often a painful revelation…much like looking at a closet full of clothes that I most likely will never wear again.

The reality is that even if I were able to fit into my old clothes, I would feel uncomfortable and out of touch.  I’m not that person anymore and bell bottoms will hopefully never come back in style! I must remember this as I write.  That girl doesn’t exist anymore, but she is responsible for making me the woman I am today.  For that I thank her and forgive her silliness and misconceptions, but it is time to focus on the person I am today. It’s time to clean out that closet!

Life's Speed Bumps

Some people seem to be more able to shrug negative experiences and interactions off.  They are affected by them, but they remain intact and grounded in who they are and their sense of worth.  Others find themselves deeply affected by difficult people and situations, and they may find their sense of self and confidence suffers as a result. I must admit to falling more often into the second category.

Self-doubt and fear of making mistakes begins from other people’s expectations of us and sometimes even their criticism of us when we’ve made mistakes. The information that was not encouraging and supportive in our learning is the root of our self-doubt.  Many of us, in part because of the external responses we have received throughout our lives, may feel self-doubt or insecurity.  This type of negative self-perception that we are not good enough makes it more and more difficult to feel confident or roll with the punches of everyday life without allowing them to tear down our sense of self.

I grew up thinking that family life should follow a “Leave it to Beaver” or “Ozzie and Harriet” model. Father should work at some ambiguous job that allowed him to be home most of the time smoking a pipe and reading the newspaper. He should offer wisdom and sage advice to his children when their actions required redirection, but never raise his voice or his hand in anger. Mother should spend her time in the kitchen smiling and looking like she had just come from a church social, and families should live harmoniously in a beautiful home with all the modern amenities of the time. 

It seemed to my young mind that everyone in the world lived like this except my family! My mother worked teaching school from the time I can remember and was the primary bread-winner for the family. She never had time to bake cookies or create the fabulous meals that June Cleaver prepared! There was no money for summer camp, or movies and we seemed to work at the farm all the time without ever getting ahead. We had none of the modern amenities I saw on television. Most of the time, we didn’t even have a telephone! Our toilet was a lilac bush at the side of the house! Running water was provided by a well that often ran dry during the summer and water had to be trucked in from town.

When I became a teenager, I longed for the whirlwind of parties and fun that Gidget experienced, but my life seemed both frightening and dull by comparison. This was about this time that my father’s alcoholism became public knowledge and I felt outcast as an undesirable because of it. Our family was focused on survival rather than fun, and I began to feel as if I didn’t deserve success.

A negative self-image can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  In other words, self-doubt is a mindset that sets us up to fail.  This type of negative self-perception tends to feed upon itself. We begin to see the world in terms of experiences that solidify that perception that we are not good enough. The core emotion beneath self-doubt is fear. Even the most self-confident among us will experience doubt from time to time. This dark shadow of insecurity can lead to hesitation and indecision.  If left unchecked, it can cause us to abandon our course or radically compromise our expectations. Like termites chewing away at the foundation of a strong building, doubt can undermine our strongest beliefs.  Oftentimes it is the only thing that stands between where we are and where we want to be.

In my case, I had always wanted to be a writer, but this endeavor was frowned upon in my small community and I was afraid of the criticism I would receive.  Women should be wives and mothers first, but if they chose to work there were only three occupations that were considered suitable for women:  teacher, secretary, or nurse. Since teaching was the closest thing to writing, I chose to major in English and teach others to become writers!

If we give into the temptation to ignore or deny self-doubt, it will impose limits on our ability to act. Self-doubt can be a stealthy problem. The more I studied and read the great works of other writers; I began to doubt my ability to produce anything of quality and thus, became paralyzed to act on my ambitions. It seemed that anything I wrote sounded trite and forced rather than real and natural. So I gave up.

So now, in the autumn of my life, I have decided to face my fears and meet my feelings of doubt head on. Normally, feelings override logic, but questioning the validity of feelings brings them within the reach of reason. For nearly forty years I have forced myself to approach life from the viewpoint of logic and reason.  In the process, I lost contact with my creative side and yet this is where my natural inclination lies. Rediscovering my creativity and imagination has been difficult to say the least!

For most people, self-doubt is just a temporary condition. Successful people think of it as a speed bump on the road to success. I believe that if I can take the bump in stride, then I can put the pedal to the metal, and go for it! Success will be within my grasp!

Surviving the Wrath of Nature

Surviving a natural disaster has to do with much more than getting through the environmental, physical, and financial aspects of the disaster. The increased vulnerability that most people experience when they have faced extreme danger, death and physical injury, and the loss of their regular ways of life cannot be ignored. Such feelings of vulnerability almost always lead to immense levels of stress. And the effects—the emotional toll--of that stress can vary from person to person.

The recent heavy winter storms throughout the Midwest remind us of how vulnerable we humans are in the face of Mother Nature’s fury.  Weather extremes are not uncommon in the Great Plains and yet no matter how well-prepared we think we are, we continue to be surprised by how helpless we are in the face of nature’s sudden fury.

The extremes of Kansas weather are often exacerbated by heavy winds that only increase the storm’s fury. Heavy winter snows accompanied by high winds create drifts of six feet or more and the temperature can drop suddenly to 30 degrees below zero with a wind chill making it even colder.  The wind and snow are often so fierce that people can become lost within a few yards of their front doors.

But winter is not the only time the wind is vicious.  In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the settlement of the Great Plains provided the growing nation with agricultural riches and a bustling farm economy, but the rapid development of previously arid lands into massive wheat fields had a detrimental effect upon the land itself. Where buffalo grass had previously provided nutrients and kept the soil anchored to the ground, the newly plowed wheat fields left the soil exposed to the elements.  In the summer of 1934, with conditions worsened by a long drought, winds began to whip the sunbaked soil into thick, dark, low-riding clouds of dust. The dust clouds assaulted everything, destroying crops, killing livestock and suffocating farmers and their families.

Of course the most infamous of the killer winds is the tornado.  A tornado appears as a rotating, funnel-shaped cloud that extends from a thunderstorm to the ground with whirling winds that can reach 300 miles per hour.  Damage paths can be in excess of one mile wide and 50 miles long.  Some tornadoes are clearly visible, while rain or nearby low-hanging clouds obscure others.  Occasionally, tornadoes develop so rapidly that little, if any advance warning is possible. The most destructive tornado in Kansas history smashed through Topeka on June 8, 1966. The storm cut a swath of ruin though the capital city, destroying hundreds of homes, causing millions of dollars in damage, and killing 16 residents.  It remains one of the costliest tornadoes on record.

A firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system. It is most commonly a natural phenomenon, created during some of the largest wildfires. Typically the state experiences most of its wildfires in March and April when ranchers are conducting controlled burns on the prairie.  Drought conditions and high winds make wild fires especially dangerous. When conditions green up in the summer and the humidity is higher, it lowers the chances.  Kansas Forest Service officials estimated that more than 41,000 acres were burned across the state in 2012 making it one of the worst years on record.

But killer winds are not the only way Mother Nature dispenses her fury.  Measured in terms of human suffering, tremendous losses in property, and extensive disruption of business activities, the July 1951 flood ranks as the greatest natural catastrophe in the history of the region.  The floods inn Kansas were caused by above-normal precipitation during May and June that caused some major flooding and established high streamflows, high ground-water levels and a minimum capacity for the soil to absorb any additional rainfall.

The heavy spring rains were followed by the great storm of July 9-13, 1951 that was centered near the common divide of the Kansas and Neosho River Basins.  Precipitation began during the afternoon of July 9 and continued through the morning of July 10.  Following a brief respite, the precipitation began again the evening of July 10 and continued through July 12.  Each day was characterized by excessive rainfall during the late afternoon and night with little or no rainfall during the early and mid-afternoon hours.  By midnight July 13, unprecedented total amounts of rain had fallen since the beginning of the storm.

Total damage from the flood was unparalleled. From the headwaters of the Kansas River to the mouth of the Missouri River at St. Louis, about 2 million acres were flooded. 45,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, and 17 major bridges, some of them weighted with locomotives in an attempt to hold them, were washed away. Transportation was disrupted as highways and railroads were closed from days to weeks.  One of the more unusual damage reports came from LeRoy, Kansas where the Neosho River had washed caskets from graves at the cemetery.

It is quite normal for people to experience mild stress reactions to natural disasters like these for several days or weeks afterward. Often, initially, people will experience shock and denial in the first couple hours or days after the disaster. When shock occurs, people feel stunned or dazed. Denial means that they cannot acknowledge that a stressful situation has occurred or that they cannot experience the full intensity of what has happened. Both shock and denial are normal protective responses to the trauma of the disaster, which can be too much to absorb all at once.

After those initial reactions subside, people’s reactions can vary to a large extent. Often they may feel intense and unpredictable feelings, though sometimes feelings of anger and fear may be triggered by specific reminders of the natural disaster. Some people will have reactions immediately following the event and some will have delayed reactions. Some will recover quickly and some will have adverse effects for a long time. Though most people’s reactions will dissipate within a few weeks, as many as one in three survivors of natural disasters will experience more severe stress responses. Those responses can last for multiple weeks, months, or even years.

At some period, my family has weathered all of these natural disasters and they have left a lasting effect on each one of us.  It is a testament to the strength of the human spirit that we are able to pick up the pieces of our shattered lives and do whatever it takes to move on, rebuild, or start over.

Grieving the Death of a Child

The death of a child is particularly difficult because it’s not supposed to happen.  It is out of the natural order of things.  Young lives are full of promise and possibilities and should never be cut short before they have a chance to be realized.  Every parent I know would gladly exchange his or her own life for the lives of their children. But sometimes that choice is not ours to make.

When Ken and I got married he had three grown sons and I had eight year old twins. I don’t know what possessed him to take on a second family just as his was leaving the nest, but I am forever thankful for the wit and wisdom he provided in the raising of mine.  I have often said that God brought us together for a reason.  It seemed an uncanny coincidence that he should be grieving the loss of his wife of 22 years just as I was experiencing a painful divorce.

I was concerned that his boys would not accept their father entering a new relationship so soon after the death of their mother, but they welcomed me in and made me feel comfortable.  I made no attempt to “mother” these adult children, but I tried to be supportive and I loved playing “grandma” to their children.

Greg was the oldest of the boys at age 27.  He was married and had a three-year old daughter. They were struggling as a couple and having financial difficulty. Less than two years separated Randy from his older brother, Greg and his younger brother, Lowell.   As the middle child,   Randy was a gentle, loving young man with a giving nature. He was enjoying the party life and was living on his own in Denver when Ken and I were married.  Ken’s youngest son, Lowell enjoyed being the clown of the family. He worked nights at a local nightclub and dreamed of becoming a top chef.

As parents we are not responsible for the life decisions our adult children make.  We can only celebrate their successes and stand ready to help pick up the pieces when things go wrong. Randy’s lifestyle led him to contract HIV/AIDS in 1987 shortly after Ken and I moved to California to begin our new life together.  We could only watch helplessly as his health declined and his smile disappeared.  His death two years later at the age of 27 was extremely hard on Ken. I could not begin to imagine the pain of losing a child. But just as he had handled the death of his wife, he picked up the pieces of his life and moved forward.  I’m not sure I could have done the same.  From time to time, a memory or special day will trigger a return of the grieving, but he doesn’t let it consume him.

Last year, after leading a very troubled life, Greg finally found his peace by committing suicide. I feared that the pain of losing two children would be impossible to bear, but once again, Ken grieved and moved on. His greatest remorse was that his children had suffered in their final days on earth and he had not been there to comfort them. His emotional strength in dealing with this loss has consistently amazed me.

My grandmother lost a child at the young age of 5 months and the loss affected her for her entire life. She became paranoid and bitter. She mistrusted everyone and had difficulty expressing her emotions. To us she seemed cold and unfeeling. She seldom laughed or caressed us and seemed overly critical of everything.

I was curious to know whether these two very different responses  to the death of a child were typical of the different grieving processes experienced by men and women.  

Several research articles pointed to the fact that mothers often have more difficulty overcoming the death of a child than fathers do.  This can be traced partly to social norms that place the mother in the more nurturing role in the family.  She tends to take on the responsibility for the care and protection of her young so when something goes wrong, she takes it as a personal failure and the guilt can be unbearable.  Because of the nursing experience, mothers often bond more quickly to their infant child than fathers. Therefore, losing an infant when it is most dependent on the nurturing care of the parent may be particularly difficult for the mother. As today’s fathers take a more active parenting role, this may be truer in my grandmothers’ case that it is today. 

The research also indicates that it is not uncommon for women who experience the death of a child to experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) similar to that experienced by combat veterans. They often suffer from psychological disorders like paranoia and substance dependency which can last throughout their lives. Treatment for PTSD has only recently come under scrutiny with the return of combat veterans from Vietnam. In my grandmother’s time, there was no diagnosis or treatment for the disorder.  Like combat veterans, grieving parents were simply told to get on with their lives and have more children.  What is misunderstood in this pronouncement is that one can never replace a child no matter how many children come afterward.  There is always a void and an empty place at the table.  There is always a life unfulfilled and the dreams of what might have been.

Pretending that the child never existed is not an option for the grieving parent.  There are still memories to be shared and smiles to be remembered. Just because their lives were cut short does not mean that they had never lived or that their lives did not touch others in the short time they were with us. When asked how many children he has, Ken always answers, “I had three sons.”

The Will to Survive

“It is defeat that turns bone to flint, and gristle to muscle, and makes men invincible, and formed those heroic natures that are now in ascendency in the world. Do not, then, be afraid of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good cause.”  - Henry Ward Beecher

As evidenced in the story of Louis Zamperini who survived shipwreck and Japanese prison camp during World War II or the story of Aaron Ralston, the young hiker who amputated his own arm when it was crushed by an 800 pound boulder, the notion of the will to survive is an important concept when attempting to understand and comprehend why we do what we do. This can be related to either one’s push for survival on the brink of death, or someone who is just trying to find a meaning to continuing their life in the face of severe hardship. Some researchers say that those who have a reason or purpose in life during such dreadful and horrific experiences, will often appear to fare better than those that may find such experiences overwhelming. Every day, people undergo countless types of negative experiences, some which may be demoralizing, hurtful, or tragic. An ongoing question continues to be what maintains the will to survive in these situations.

The years of The Great Depression were especially hard on Kansas farmers because the economic crisis coincided with years of drought and dust storms. Farmers and economists alike had not foreseen the drop in demand for American goods at the end of World War I.  The abundant harvest coupled with falling demand left an excess of crop and not enough profit to pay for expenditures.  Overproduction led to plummeting prices which led to stagnant market conditions and living standards for farmers in the 1920s. Gradually, the small family farm that had long been the model was replaced by larger and more business-oriented farms.

Hundreds of thousands of farmers had taken out mortgages and loans to buy out their neighbors’ property, and now were unable to meet the financial burden. The cause was the collapse of land prices after the wartime bubble which left farmers saddled with heavy debts. More and more small farmers were forced to give up the land and seek employment elsewhere in order to survive.

The power to ‘hold on’ is mental strength characteristic of anyone who persevered in the face of adversity.  They may lack in some other area, have many weaknesses or eccentricities, but the quality of persistence is never absent. No matter what opposition they meet or what discouragement or obstacles they face, they manage to survive through perseverance. It is not so much brilliancy of intellect, or fertility of resource, as persistency of effort and constancy of purpose, that helps them survive. They know that if they ever accomplish their personal goals they must do it by determined and persistent industry.

We hear a great deal of talk about wealth, genius, talent, luck, chance, or cleverness playing a large part in one’s personal success. Leaving out luck and chance, all these elements are important factors. Yet the possession of any or all of them, unaccompanied by a definite aim, a determined purpose, will not insure personal success.

Persistency of purpose is a power. The persistent man never stops to consider whether he is succeeding or not. The only question with him is how to push ahead, to get a little farther along, a little nearer his goal. Whether it leads over mountains, rivers, or swamps, he must reach it. Every other consideration is sacrificed to this one dominant purpose.

Education is nothing without strong and vigorous resolution and stamina to make one accomplish something in the world. An encouraging start is nothing without backbone.

Opposing circumstances create strength. Opposition gives us greater power of resistance. To overcome one barrier gives us greater ability to overcome the next.

Success is not measured by what a man accomplishes, but by the opposition he has encountered, and the courage with which he has maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds. Not the distance we have run, but the obstacles we have overcome, the disadvantages under which we have made the race, will decide the prizes.

Without the cowboys and schoolmarms of yesteryear who persevered in spite of incredible hardships, our country would not have grown and prospered to be the world power it is today.  We owe these pioneers a debt of gratitude for their strength and fortitude.  They are the backbone of the nation and a testament to the power of the human spirit.

The Lost Art of Courtship

It is ironic that as we approach the “season of love” I am also working on the chapter on courtship for the book version of School Marms and Cowboys. The story is set in the Flint Hills of Kansas at the turn of the last century and focuses on the classic relationship between the cowboy and the school marm at a time in history when the old ways were dying out and the country was on the verge of depression.  While the cowboy represents the past, he must now adapt to a world where his skills are no longer of any great value.  To do this, he needs the education and insight of the school marm.  The question is how these two unlikely people come together and endure through the changes they must face to survive.

The answer is as old as time… courtship!  Whereas dating takes the young girl away from the watchful eyes of her parents, courtship usually occurs under the watchful eyes of the parents or chaperones. It was fun, flirtatious, and sly. Courtship was more like a dance. It included much posturing and maneuvering between the man and the woman to catch the attention of the other and then telegraph one’s interest in continuing the pursuit. Because the dance demanded a certain amount of time spent in the company of others, the relationship could be tested under different circumstances to see how either partner would respond. The outcome of the “test” was clearly evident by the immediate feedback one received from those in attendance. The length of the dance depended entirely on the couple.  Sometimes the pursuit was short and progressed quickly to the heat of passion. Other times, depending on the couple’s readiness to make a commitment to the relationship, the pursuit far outlasted the passion.

 While it’s true that this arrangement did not result in significantly fewer instances of premarital sex, it did give the parents an opportunity to get acquainted with the prospective suitor. In today’s more mobile society, the parents may not ever meet the boyfriend until they come home and find him sprawled on the couch as if he owned it. Dating, and hence, courtship takes place away from the prying eyes of those who might censor or test the relationship, and the period of courtship is often eliminated altogether.

I must admit that I am totally mystified by the concept of online dating.  In this instance, “dating” is little more than an online conversation leading to phone sex. While dating may eliminate the fun of courtship, this arrangement seems to totally take all the fun and enjoyment out of discovering a relationship.  It’s a fantasy arrangement that takes place in the minds of the participants and that is why it is so easy for one or the other of the parties involved to take advantage of the other by feeding on the fantasy. It is not surprising that someone involved in this type of relationship eventually reaches a point where they throw all caution to the wind in order to bring the fantasy to life.  Unfortunately, fantasies are often unrealistic and impossible to live up to.

We all seek relationships with significant others whether it be through physical attraction, or emotional need. In my book I am exploring not only what chemistry sparks this interest in another, but how these relationships change over time.  I am particularly interested in how relationships endure through pain, hardship and loss.

 Does the dance continue even though the music changes?