Um...yeah...that's not reality...

My running buddy was telling me about a reality show she watched. She said in the season finale the striking doctor whisked away his choice lady to a hillside where they shared their first kiss in the setting sun. Mere months later they where living apart having called the whole thing off. These are the topics that puzzle us at 5:30 each morning as we run in the cool air of our quiet community.

We tried to wrap our minds around a reality dating show that is completely unhitched from reality. The beautiful women live together in a mansion while fashion stylists work feverishly to make them fetching. The suitor seems to have an endless supply of funds as he plans exotic vacations and dates complete with gondolas and violin players.

That is not reality.

Reality is bedhead and morning breath. It is home brewed coffee and tracking down the morning paper in the bushes while wearing your slippers. Reality is listening to food poisoning attack your spouse from the other side of the bathroom door.

Reality is not an endless fairytale where you travel to work by hot air balloon. It is not all butterflies and sugar cookies. Reality is gritting your teeth and hunkering down for the ride.

In reality you do not walk into your bathroom to meet your hairstylists everyday (well, I don't!). You don't have cameras following you around and you don't have producers planning the perfect spontaneous moments. In reality people work and tend to chores. In reality dogs must be walked and children must be fed. In reality there is dust that needs to be removed and carpets that need vacuuming. In reality there are a million little things to accomplish to simply function as a productive member of society.

It is no wonder that when the cameras leave the lust leaves. The couple must engage with one another without prompts. They find themselves alone and face-to-face. After the final rose is given society could care less. Life goes on...reality sets in.

I rather like reality but I can see how it is not everyone's cup of tea. Reality can provide some stirring moments but it is usually not total drama and angst. After our home burnt down, I craved normalcy. I wanted to sleep in my own bed, under my own roof, in my own pajamas. I wanted my coffee to come from the pot on my counter and the flowers to come from my flower bed. The drama of having a house go up in flames drained me. I just wanted normal.

Everyone's normal is different but normal is certainly not how reality shows portray it. How sad for the contestants looking for love who get caught up in the fairytale the show producer creates. That fairytale cannot last forever. Reality swoops in and squashes it leaving the love birds feeling empty and deflated. 

My husband has never chartered a helicopter just so we could kiss on a mountain-top at sunset and that is OK. Reality is he kisses me every morning before the chaos of raising children begins. That works for me. True love outranks lust and my reality suites me just fine.