This week we look at love that is past its prime but is still pink and rosy! Also, read about family time with chocolates, coming across forgotten friends and doing nothing…

Popular art on romance and romantic couples will tell you that love does not change for them with their age. These works of art portray love as something evergreen, unchanging and relentless. But the ground reality seems to be something else. Eleanor was discussing this very fact about love and lovers of her age when she made some statements that don’t match the notion of love as we know it. Eleanor told me that love branches out into several different emotions when you are more mature.

“Age opens various new avenues for you,” Eleanor told me, “It makes you more perceptive about your emotions. Your needs are different as opposed to teenage lovers!” The twinkle in her eyes made it apparently clear as to what she was referring to. Just as Eleanor finished saying this, her husband Frank joined us and handed me a beer. He bent over, kissed Eleanor and went over to fix dinner. Eleanor turned to me and said, “But expressions of love still set your heart aflutter!” Point taken, Eleanor!

There’s some trouble in the family of Donna. Ethan is having a tough time in junior high. He has not got a lot of friends there. He’s not speaking openly about it to his mother. But he did mention to me that his class mates are not seeing eye to eye with him on several points. “For example,” Ethan said, “I cannot bring myself to read all those vampire stuff that they read!” Ethan finds himself on the wrong side of the bed. He doesn’t have anything common to share with his friends in school.

Donna was worried about Ethan’s silence and feared the worst. She was a tad relieved to find out what it actually was from me. To cheer him up, Donna has decided to make some chocolate treats this weekend! Ethan likes chocolate muffins and at home, he can unabashedly indulge himself in whatever he likes. This is going to be a surprise party for him. Since I was fortunate enough to be his confidante, I have been invited as well! This is surely going to be one fun occasion!

This is the age of the internet and internet friends. Unless you have just landed on Planet Earth, you are sure to have a social networking profile. And if you have that, you must be receiving random friend requests, along with several ones from your mates from high school. It is a strange feeling to re-discover someone from school on a social network, only to realize that his great mop of hair that earned him several nicknames is now a desolate bald patch! It’s a realization that makes you jump in surprise.

You waste no time in adding that person on your friend list. What happens then? Do you talk like you used to in the days back in school? Do you fill each other up on what happened during all these years? We hardly do that. We feel that there is so much to tell on either side that it seems futile to even begin talking about the past. There is also the nagging truth that we don’t want to recall the days that have gone by. Making a fresh start with your old friend is the way ahead! People don’t change; only the calendar does.

You will always find lonely people telling you that work keeps them going. Work is uplifting for many and keeps all unwanted thoughts away because your mind is busy crunching numbers or thinking of ideas. Despite these mind-numbing qualities of work, there are times when you want to just let go and relax. You feel you have done your bit and now you have to carve out some time for yourself. There is nothing wrong in that. In fact, this invalid guilt is what keeps you deprived from living for yourself.

You give your week to the office and the weekends to your friends, hanging out, partying, clubbing, etc. What are you giving yourself? It’s time you slacken your break-neck speed and evaluate. Life is not just professional success. You need to have personal ambitions as well. Why can’t you take a day off and spend the time lazing around the house? Surely, you may say that the economy won’t allow that. But think twice! Is it really the work or is it the habit? Only you can give yourself a day off to live your own life.

Here’s a Rene Yasenek quote that is dedicated to Eleanor and Frank: “Kissing is a means of getting two people so close together that they can’t see anything wrong with each other.”