"My parents just had their 33rd wedding anniversary,...They still love each other hell amounts, but they've both changed tremendously in those years (my dad more than my mom). If they were to meet now, they would not get together. BUT, the fact is they have 33 years of shared experiences- joy, wonder, and unbelievable pain- that have linked them in a way that no new love could even compare to, not with all the passion and fire in the world....Of course, the jaded cynic in me asserts that I'll never find anyone w/ whom I can have a healthy, communicative, burying-kingdom relationship, but the hopeless romantic in me still whispers about greens under blacks, and the purples & reds I might find if I look even deeper. So, now the long-awaited point. I don't want to be in love but not at peace, but I don't want to be in love & at peace, either, cuz that would imply, to me, a certain amount of stagnant complacency....Too much change has not helped my parents' relationship, but it would not be any better off if they had stayed exactly the way they were when they were 20; they might get along better, but they would be bored stiff, with no history to mourn & celebrate. As it is put so eloquently in RENT, 'the opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation.' So, that's what I want, & it's what I want for my parents- to be in love & creation. Creation of art, of kisses never tried before, of levels of communication previously undiscovered & new words to describe those levels."