Everything I know about love I learned from movies, so I know that someone out there is meant for me, trying to find me despite incredible obstacles. It might be time or distance that separates us, or possibly war and pestilence. Whatever it is, it's something big. If it's a river, it's the Amazon. If it's a mountain, it's Everest. If it's a planet, it's Jupiter. Somehow, some day, everything will be resolved and we'll find each other.

Everything I know about love I learned from best-selling fiction, so I know that my one true love is living in an Irish village, or in a tenement in Baltimore, or in the year 1772. Oh, the adventures we'll have as life's twists and turns lead us inexorably toward each other. At times it will seem that one or the other of us will give up, but somehow, some day, we'll write our own final chapter. And we'll live happily ever after.

Everything I know about love I learned from soap operas, so I know that someone has been plotting to keep my love and me apart. That's the only possible reason we're not together, unless it's amnesia or a South American prison or a forced marriage to the wrong person. Someday we'll find each other. Unfortunately, in thirteen weeks we'll be separated again, by something we should have seen coming. All the signs are there, if only we were paying attention.

Everything I know about love I learned from telenovelas, so I know that my true love's evil twin will conspire with the local land baron to keep us apart. Class differences will make it seem we can't fit into each other's worlds. Our families will put every obstacle in our way, from defrocked priests to stampeding horses. The brake line on our jeep will be cut, just as we're about to head down the mountain. They'll convince each of us that the other is dead, but in the last episode we'll be married in front of the whole cast, friends and enemies alike.

Everything I know about love I learned from love songs, so I know that someone out there is pining for me, aching for me, wondering what I'm doing tonight and wishing we were together. A happy ending is possible, but unlikely since we only have three and a half minutes to work it out.

Everything I know about love I learned from being with people who know what love is. I'm lucky to have so many of those people in my life, and I'm grateful for the thousands of graces and sacrifices I've witnessed over the years that prove to me that love exists. Love is real! That's worth celebrating, today and forever.