There is nothing lost, that cannot be found, if sought.....

One of my favorite movies, and books is Sense and Sensibility. I've seen it a million times, I know the story by heart, I love the characters, the plot twists, the romantic aspect of it. Jane Austen was a brilliant writer. Pride and Prejudice is also among my favorites.

I relate to many of the characters in the Jane Austen books. I see myself in so many of the women and sometimes the men in these stories. One of my favorite characters is Marianne Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility. She is a hopeless and hopeful romantic, much like myself. She gives up on love for a time, thinking that the possibility of falling in love twice in one liftime just isn't possible.

Here's a little of the story:

In the beginning, she falls in love with someone who seems to be the end-all. He sweeps her off of her feet, he turns her world upside down. Willoughby seems like the perfect man. He nearly is, but not quite. (stick with me here) He breaks her heart, shatters it into a million pieces. She is overcome with distraught, she can barely breathe when she thinks of all that he did to her. She feels like her life will never go on, like she cannot live any longer. She comes close to drowning in her sorrow. Just when you think she is gone, she gasps for air, she breaths again. Her life goes on. Eventually her heart heals. As the gorgeous Kate Winslet (who happens to play Marianne in my favorite version of S&S) says in one of my other favorite movies, The Holiday "Little pieces of your soul..... finally come back." I've experienced this first hand. I truly believe that time heals all wounds. You just have to have faith and a little hope.

Towards the end of the book, after nearly dying, she finds him. Her real prince charming, who happens to be a colonel. Someone who had been just beyond her reach for a long time. He is her soul's match in every way. Love of poetry, of music, of the great outdoors, they share so much in common. She feels safe, protected, loved. He loves her and that means everything to her. He even happens to be the one who rescues her from a rain storm and he does whatever he can to help her when she's on her death bed. He's not necessarily someone who she would have pictured herself with when she was younger but he makes her feel so special and so loved. He takes care of her and loves her completely. It's just perfect.

Okay okay, cheezy, I know. But I love this story!

Love is a crazy thing, you never know what the future holds. But I can't wait to find out where my heart will finally end up. Reading stories like this has given me hope over the years. They show that, yes, even though they are fiction, true love exists. It is real and it is possible to find.

This is one of my favorite sonnets in Sense and Sensibility:

Sonnet VII
By Hartley Coleridge

Is love a fancy, or a feeling? No.
It is immortal as immaculate truth,
'Tis not a blossom shed as soon as youth,
Drops from the stem of life--for it will grow,
In barren regions, where no waters flow,
Nor rays of promise cheats the pensive gloom.
A darkling fire, faint hovering o'er a tomb,
That but itself and darkness nought doth show,
It is my love's being yet it cannot die,
Nor will it change, though all be changed beside;
Though fairest beauty be no longer fair,
Though vows be false, and faith itself deny,
Though sharp enjoyment be a suicide,
And hope a spectre in a ruin bare.