"Romance may open the door to love, but it does not help us walk through it. Something else is needed. Something deeper. Something ultimately more real. Challenging times must be weathered. Love must be strengthened beyond neediness and self-interest. It must die a thousand deaths to learn to rise like the phoenix beyond adversity of any kind. Love is not a fragile, shiny thing, kept separate from the pain and misery of life. It is born of our willingness to learn from our mistakes and encounter the depth of our pain, as well as our partner's pain. That is the way it is. In time we learn that all pain is the same pain. And we have compassion for the other people who inadvertently step on our toes as they learn to find the inner rhythms of the dance. Like us, they will stumble and fall hundreds of times until that moment of profound aceptance when grace comes and the beloved takes their hand in the circle."