Love has never been simple — and maybe that’s the point. As George Bernard Shaw wryly noted: “Love gets people into difficulties, not out of them.” But oh, what a glorious tangle it can be.

In my life, I’ve loved three men. Well… maybe four. Five, tops. And every time, getting out of love was harder than falling in. My first love, Chip with the soft lips, once called me a “beautiful Mexican Creeper” when he broke up with me. Ouch. Grandma Dorothy — one of the world’s smartest gardeners — explained: “It’s that pretty pink vine across the street. Very hardy. Heart-shaped leaves. Terrible roots, though. It squeezes the life out of anything it grows around.”

(Chip, wherever you are — that memory still stings.)

And yet, I’ve never loved moderately. I never will. Maybe it’s in my blood. Grandma Emily and I spent afternoons sharing romance paperbacks from the library — she always wanted the “hot ones,” even at 70. So yes, I love roses, chocolate-covered strawberries, champagne, dancing, wishing on falling stars, the poetry of John Keats, and mushy movies. These days, it’s kindness that makes me swoon. Character, generosity… and, yes, Bruce Springsteen still has my heart.

Falling in love is easy. Falling out of love is difficult, nearly impossible. But would I trade a single heartbeat? Never. As Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda wrote: “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where… I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way.”