Paper Roses

 

 

 

When I was a girl I was a big Donny and Marie Osmond fan….. Like most 8 year old’s in 1973, this song, Paper Roses’ was blasted out on my cassette player, which I had ‘taped’ off the radio.  Kids today will not understand this concept. – they have smart phones, I tunes and spotify at the touch of their tiny fingers!

I really loved this particular song and believe I had some understanding of the meaning behind it.  Yes I know I was only 8, so how could I have the emotional intelligence to understand it…..   I guess it was in the way that Marie sang it, with emotion and meaning.  You can ‘feel’ that.

My aunts and granny would get me to sing , when we were on holidays in Ireland, not to mention get me to perform the reel or a jig.  I was the ‘entertainment’.  I was embarrassed at first, but always complied and the  rapturous  applaud would make my confidence soar and my nerves disappear….. for another year!

Back to the paper roses song, how many people experience that ‘imitation love’ but stick with it?  I think the answer is higher than we’d imagine…. or is it that it is not really an ‘imitation’ love, just a ‘gone off the boil’ love and how can you tell the difference?   I think the answer is that you ‘Feel it’.

Every romantic relationship will have it’s ups and downs.  That is natural  and some people are just not meant to be together while others are truly destined to be together.  Does it all come with plain sailing though…. no, not at all.  The same as parenting, there is no guide book for that either, you just muddle through and hope for the best!

The thing is with romance, shouldn’t there at least be a meeting of the minds, be on the same wavelength,  be heading in the same direction.  The heart stuff is easy, for some too easy, to fall in love…….  Once there, in that love place, the complications begin.  It is in that place that even the coldest, most inconsiderate, upsetting situations can arise, but then you are trapped in the web, as your heart is telling you to stay.  But what is your head telling you?

It switches, stay, go, stay, go…. until one day you will finally make the decision.  I know I have done this a few times in my life.  I have loved, and been in that love place, but I left, because it was the right thing to do.  We did not have a meeting of the minds.  we were not on the same wavelength and we were not heading in the same direction.  Was it easy? of course not.  It was difficult, upsetting, hurtful, chaotic and topsy turvy, not to mention absolutely depressing, but it was still the right thing to do.  The love was there but not the most important bits to sustain the relationship.  This was the real roses, but like all living things, they died, as did the love, eventually.

Sometimes, the love place has wained,  but there is still a meeting of the minds, the same wavelength and focus on the same direction.  Is this then, an ‘imitation’ love, is this a paper roses love, where the  roses can last much longer than the real ones, but just need dusting off every now and then to preserve them?  The paper roses can be put away,  ignored for a while and then rediscovered one day, taken out, dusted off and be on full display again to be enjoyed.  They have perseverance and staying power.  They may curl and bend, but they won’t wilt and die.

Which is best then, the imitation love and paper roses, or the true love, that has the potential to die.  Perhaps it is possible for them to cross over,  like osmosis, a weaving in and out of real and imitation love and real and imitation paper roses.

The one thing I do know, is the love one should have for themselves, in order that they can truly love someone else !