IL DIVO …. sigh.

I wrote this is 2012. Thought I’d share again.
I went to an IL DIVO concert last night. It was awesome. The singing was transcendent and I found myself somewhere else, living some other life. (I’m listening to them as I write this). Some fairy tale life where I am the most important, most amazing, most loved, most beautiful and most desired woman in the world. Maybe that is why all the women fall for their music…because it gives us something that we never can quite find in our own lives. We live in reality…where we have husbands that we’ve been married to forever that are not usually romantic and they don’t regularly bring us Starbucks and flowers and they don’t rip our clothes off in animal desire anymore (maybe never did). They don’t spend hours gazing into the deep pools that are our eyes. They don’t have time to linger in bed and wrap us up with the sheets or get up in the middle of the night and make us pancakes (if they even know where the kitchen is) and we eat by candlelight. They don’t spend all their time focusing on how to surprise us with gifts and trips and romantic gestures. We don’t sail off into the sunset wrapped in their arms with the moon shining down on the deck and the waves slapping up against the boat. Rarely.

Real life is….well….too real. Too unpredictable. Too predictable. Too apathetic. Too urgent. Too full of crisis or totally empty. Men are not relational by nature and they really are not our soul mates for the most part. Most men don’t know there exists deep inside every woman a deep need and desire to be…well…desired. We want to know we are beautiful. We want to know that we are the most important person in our man’s life. We want to be appreciated. We want to be complimented, encouraged, affirmed and spoiled. We want to be cherished and protected. Is this happening in most relationships? Marriages? Or have a lot of us fallen into assumption and apathy. You know the old story….I told you I loved you at the wedding…if anything changes I’ll let you know. Our men are just not cutting it…and not getting it. Then IL DIVO shows up and sing songs of undying passion and love…to some mythical woman who is the most beautiful in the world and worth dying for. They can’t think of anything else. (at least we think that’s what they are saying since they are usually singing in Spanish or French…they could be telling us how their dog got run over by a pick up truck). And to we, supposedly short changed women…they become our heros…our knight riding up on a great horse to rescue us and save us from redundancy. They answer the questions that tear at the deepest places of our souls. And for one concert, one song, one moment…we can live out the idea that maybe, just maybe, we ARE worthy amazing loveable desirable women. The stuff movies and books are made of. And music…there is something about music that moves the soul almost anytime….never mind when the words of love and affirmation are being sung by young handsome talented men dressed in black tuxes surrounded by clouds of dry ice. Snap…concerts over. Back to reality.

I do some research on these guys. One was married for three years and is divorced. One is possibly living with a woman…the mother of his child…very cloak and dagger-ish. One is married with three children to a woman to whom pregnancy could be fatal each time. One is newly married…no kids. So these men are not single and searching and dateable…especially to us older married women. What were we thinking??? Slap slap. Wake up. These songs are written with poetic words and themes that are lovely and idealistic. Possibly the way God meant love to be but because of our sinful natures…it never really turns out quite that way. These guys are real men who live real lives with real relationships that struggle with pain and loss and failure too. They are also stuck in the human condition. It just so happens they have amazing voices and their day job is to sing to us and transport us to fantasyland…if they have done this then they have been successful. But its all a ruse. Unfortunately. And I wake up the next morning beside my aging husband of 31 years and wonder why my Grande Extra Hot Soy Tazo Chai is not sitting on my night table beside a dozen pink tipped roses. Its sad when Extra Hot is an adjective I only use for my favorite beverage and not the man I love and cherish.

These men of ours want to be our knights in shining armor. Our protectors and our providers. They want to be bigger than life to us but we have set the bar way too high…so unless they have fabulous voices and a Hugo Boss wardrobe we can’t seem to perceive them this way. Since when did I become the picture of womanly perfection? Justified in putting unreasonable demands and expectations on the man that has been faithful to me for 31 years. I must realize that I am: 1. Blessed to even wake up at all. 2. Wake up beside my husband of 31 years. 3. Wake up beside a man that has stood by my side through richer or poorer, sickness and health, better or worse 4. Wake up beside a man that IS real and not phony. Honest and stable. 5. Wake up beside a man that does protect me and provide for me in the best way that he can while all the time realizing that life can often really beat a man down. 6. Wake up beside a man that is the father of my two amazing children. 7. Wake up and know I have someone to face the day with and share life with….I am not alone. 8. Wake up and praise God for this man, this relationship and this marriage that has made my life so rich in so many ways. 9. Wake up and watch all our cherished memories play through my mind. 10. Wake up to know that most likely I will also be saying goodnight to this amazing man I am privileged to call Sweetheart, Darling, Honey.

So what if he buys his clothes at Costco and Value Village (he actually bought a Hugo Boss suit there recently). So what if the only time I hear him sing is beside me at church. So what if he doesn’t bring me Starbucks and flowers…he risks his life climbing up onto our plant shelf every time I want to redecorate (which is quite often). So what if he doesn’t surprise me with Mediterranean cruises, he picks my mom up at the airpot in the middle of the night and buys my kids flights to the places they need to go to follow their dreams (while we stay at home and work all week). This man I wake up to is flesh and blood and my reality and I find myself singing the words of IL DIVO’s songs in my heart in regards to my husband because I DO think he is the most amazing man on the planet…at least the most amazing one for me specifically. He is not a ruse…he’s the real thing.

And I know if I dressed him up in HUGO BOSS and put him on well lit stage with a microphone in his hand and surrounded him with clouds of fake steam that there would be oodles of women throwing their underwear on stage for him. So I think I’ll keep him and just remember that IL DIVO are great male singers….not my soul mates. They won’t be there when I wake up tomorrow morning….my faithful amazing real husband will be. The words of IL DIVO’s ditty’s sound far to trite to express my love for you Sweetheart.

Now I think I’ll go out an get my own Starbucks. Oy Vey.