Love by the Balloonatic

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Love by the Balloonatic

Earlier this year, my friend Nathan Brindle was experimenting with Midjourney and he began sharing images he had developed using images of his wife. I called them my daily Sally and they brightened up my morning when he posted them. I’m not sure if it was his plan or our encouragement, but he released them in a delightful picture book, AI is Love. Nathan and Sally, while they attended the same high school a few grades apart didn’t start dating or marry until later in life. However, having met them in person several times, they have a love that is tangible despite their differences and they are one of those  couples that, if you had to define love, you would point to them.

It feels a little ironic to be writing about love. I’m a child of parents who split up in my late teens, and the only one of my siblings to also be divorced. I’m one of those people who suits the description of lucky in cards, unlucky in love. One of the best ways to illustrate this is to point out that my older brother moved to Australia as a young adult, fell in love and got married to an Australian woman. Almost a decade after he moved there my older sister followed in his footsteps – attending school for a year, where she met her husband, fell in love and got married. Five years later, I also went to Australia for what was meant to be a year of study. I met someone, fell in love, and he moved to England. Such is the story of my life.

And yet, while I have never had a great romance of my own, I have been fortunate enough to experience it vicariously through many of my friends and family. I have seen the marriages that have lasted for decades, strong and steady. I have seen some that appeared like roller-coasters, full of ups and downs, but with the couples hanging on tight despite that. I have seen the tragedy of several friends losing their soulmate and somehow surviving, and, having had that powerful experience of love they seem to have the strength to go on with the hope that they will be able to find that love again. And some of them do. And I find myself envying them, despite their loss and the hardship that they experienced because they are secure in the knowledge that they were loved.

However, while romantic love may never be in the cards for me, love – as the Greeks taught it – has many forms. I have many people that I love and care for deeply as if they were my family. I have a son I love and of whom I am extremely proud. I have parents and siblings, nieces and nephews who I love even when I do not always like them or the choices that they have made. There is my love of God and His love for me. Plus I have my dog who adores me and loves me unconditionally (because lets face it, the cats, as much as I like them, just tolerate and expect adoration; and the chickens….). I also have a strong love for my adopted land, and the hope that as a country we can redevelop the bonds to the constitution and bill of rights that made us a shining beacon and a place where people could find freedom, justice and liberty. That we can find and strengthen the love of what made us what we once were and could be again.

As the holidays approach, let us reach out in love to those around us. Whether you are married or single, find someone who is struggling and let them know that they are loved. It might be a family member, a neighbor, a friend, a colleague or a perfect stranger. There are so many powerful people who are trying to fracture our bonds of family, friends and country. Let’s fight back not with hate but with love.

26 thoughts on “Love by the Balloonatic”

  2. As to our country, I try not to worry too much, remembering that John Adams and the Federalists tried the Alien and Sedition Act when the Constitution was less than a decade old, and that half of New England wanted to secede during the War of 1812, that slavery divided the country bitterly until the Civil War and the shocks were felt long after its end. Somehow we’ve kept chugging along.

    As to romance, I’m one of the lucky ones. I was married to the best woman who ever lived for 41 years, but as the great man said, “The course of true love never did run smooth.” When someone asked us how we met, we had to ask them if they were prepared for a long story.

    Here’s wishing all the best to you and yours.

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  3. 🎶What the world needs now is love sweet love.

    It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of….🎶

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  4. Vivāmus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
    rumoresque senum severiorum
    omnes unius aestimemus assis!
    soles occidere et redire possunt;
    nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux,
    nox est perpetua una dormienda.

    Let us live, My Lesbia and love.
    And the gossip of old harsh men
    Let us value at a penny.
    The the sun can rise and set
    For us when once the brief light has died
    A perpetual night must be slept

    Translation my own, and very loose, learned in a class of 15 year old boys. What they were thinking of, I don’t know. much hilarity was involved as I remember.

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  5. Which reminds me of Oscar Gordon’s sword in * Glory Road,* with its inscription, “Dum Vivamus, Vivamus.” Which Star translated as, “While we live, let us live!”

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  6. I was laughing because a few days after writing this someone I know tried to set me up on a blind date with someone only a few years younger than my father. Honestly, romantic love may appear sometime in the future, but for now I have enough other loves to keep me going.

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  9. I didn’t get married until I was 30, and our daughter wasn’t born until I was nearly 40. We’ve been married for over 20 years now, have had some ups and downs, but manage to keep things going. Hang in there.

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      1. And that’s not just the proud momma talking, either– he was able to deal with an invasion of thirteen and under mostly girls in good spirits. Adult men often can’t handle that!

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  10. I married at 19. Our first was born a year and a half later.

    We’ve been married 44 years. 6 living children, 10 grandchildren, so far.

    We sometimes feel like we got the last chopper out of Saigon.

    It is tough out there these days for people who still believe in “Wuv, twu Wuv”

    Our youngest son would love to find someone and raise a family, but it is a struggle. We love him to pieces and can’t imagine why it is so hard for him to find someone, but it obviously is.

    I pray for all of you who would like to find someone to spend the rest of your days with. It was never meant to be this difficult, of that I am certain.

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    1. Thanks! I have a niece in the same position and know others in their 30s and 40s who are also having a hard time meeting someone. I’m just thankful for the blessings in my life. Love may come eventually, but I’m not going to stress about it.

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  11. Married at 22. First and only child at 32. No grandchildren (darn it. Although there are lots of great-nieces and nephews arriving). Married 45 years in 18 days.

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  13. Married at 48, no kids, but we’ve been married 22 years and were together for 7 years before marriage.

    $OLDEST_BROTHER has been married 56 years now. His three kids have two stable marriages and one who never got married. $OLDER_BROTHER has been married and divorced 3 times, with the longest 20 years or so. His kids have spotty outcomes, one twice divorced, now married, apparently happily. The other divorced once, now single.

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