Lessons to Keep...Well at Least Ponder

Perhaps another reason why we’re addicted to romance novels and love in general is because we find lessons weaved into each part or section that we can learn from and possibly live by. With romance novels, I feel as if each novel teaches us something new or adds to something we already know to simply add to the joy of reading the novel and the excitement and possibility of experiencing love in real life. For example, in Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, I’ve learned something new and unique just as Ruby did from the Casserole Queens. “Love can come when you’re already who you are, when you are filled with you. Not when you look to someone else to fill the empty space.” (Caletti, 239) With this quote and lesson, I think about love and life in a new perspective, something I may never have come up with on my own. In my mind, derived from this quote from Miz June, I think that to love someone is about giving all of yourself: mentally, physically and most importantly, emotionally in an altruistic way. Love is about knowing who you are and putting yourself out there, in that identity, to have someone who’ll love you just the way you love yourself, if not more. It’s not about finding someone who wants to change who you are or someone who doesn’t see your true identity. Ruby and Ann are both victims of “loving” someone who doesn’t really see their true identities. Travis doesn’t know anything about Ruby’s character and only sees her as a toy in his fancy life that he finds boring. He doesn’t “love” Ruby, he only loves the thrill of having her around to push her to her limits and test her. She is basically his entertainment among other entertainments like stealing, breaking in, and riding on his motorcycles in dangerously fast speeds. Ruby “loves” the idea of Travis without really loving him. She loves the idea about being a different person than who she thinks she is. (She thinks herself as the quiet boring girl in town who isn’t special and plain. In reality she’s a beautiful person who has family and friends that love her from her personality and charm.) She wanted to be different and feel special and in the end traded her identity for someone else’s; someone “daring” and “dangerous” like the image of Travis’ motorcycle. Ann is also a victim of knowing who she is and trading that away from a fixture of love. She fell in love with a man who knew very little about her and her expectations. Chip never quite understood Ann and her ideas. The only thing that really attracted Chip to Ann was the idea of being waited on and having someone to come home to. He didn’t understand that this was never okay with Ann or of her true feelings. All the while Ann knew this deep down in her heart but she kept pushing it to the back of her mind because she kept lying to herself that he’d come back and be with her. In the process of pushing back the truth of their relationship, she also pushed back her true identity of being a strong, capable, single-mom who’s intelligent, funny, and a beautiful person who doesn’t need anyone to complete her. She needed someone to compliment her and her identity. Besides learning that little lesson about love requiring one’s true identity to be loved by someone without having to sacrifice any of oneself in the process, Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, like many other novels, seem to reiterate that there are many chapters in one’s long life (Caletti, 239). Although this idea/lesson can be found elsewhere, I feel I see it/find it the most in romance novels because of all the romance novels I’ve touched and read there are often many loves attached to a character. Like Ann and Lillian in Honey, Baby, Sweetheart they’ve loved and learned to love again. Ruby, like other characters in countless novels, is learning to move on and love again but this time for real. The act of reiterating that there are many chapters in one’s long life seems to put me back in my place to stop fussing around and freaking out over little details or the past. It reminds me and possibly other readers to relax and that if this one chapter in our life doesn’t work out the way a fairytale ending would, its okay. There are plenty more adventures and chapters to be written. Although this thought/action may be somewhat cliché and obvious to many, I find it helps to be reminded and be grounded. Perhaps readers go to romance novels the most because they need to be reminded that there are plenty of loves and adventures ahead of them and all they really need is to be reminded of that. Perhaps they read the novels to borrow and steal away some of the courage and lessons learned from mistakes the characters made in the novel to perhaps use those lessons and that courage in their own lives to love again, or love better or even to simply relax and start a new chapter and adventure in their life.