do you believe in magic?

He writes poetry, cooks gourmet dinners to the tunes of Puccini, Cole Porter and Gershwin and dances with me to the music in our heads. We walked down the streets of New York hand-in-hand, amazed at the wonder of it all. How did we find our way back to each other? We were friends for many years, nothing more, both living lives with other people in marriages gone bad, both craving romance. Now it's oozing out of our pores. He gets me and I get him. We spend most of our time in a dreamlike state. If this is a dream, I don't want to wake up.

When discussing this kind of romance, most people say the euphoria sometimes experienced at the beginning of many relationships is short-lived. But I've always felt love and romance is real, if you're willing to throw out all logic and reason.

We watch movies and get lost in characters like Rick Blaine and Ilsa Laszlo, Nickie Ferrante and Terry McKay, Harry Burns and Sally Albright, wanting that kind of passion, connection. Yet many of us settle for pizza eaten in front of the television, sex once a month, and disconnection. I want more. I want the romantic movie, soundtrack playing in the background included. I want the fantasy come to life.

Perhaps the key is finding someone who really wants the same things you do, not someone you think you can mold into the person you want. If you find that person, one that connects with you on some cosmic level, you find yourself not having to try to make things work. They just do. And it's magic.

"Well, it was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were suppose to be together... and I knew it. I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home... only to no home I'd ever known." -Sam Baldwin