The poison was expired. The dagger slipped. Friar Laurence develops a stress ulcer and they run away to Veronaβs version of a studio flat above a bakery that smells permanently of yeast and regret.
The first year is dramatic. They still whisper, βmy only love sprung from my only hate,β except now it is about in-laws borrowing money.
Romeo discovers Juliet sheds hair like a molting cat. Juliet discovers Romeo thinks βhelping cookβ means standing nearby with emotional support energy. Passion remains, but it now competes with laundry.
The real rebellion was never dying for love.
It is staying.
Staying when the poetry fades into grocery lists. Staying when the Montagues and Capulets become one chaotic extended family WhatsApp thread. Staying when Juliet realises Romeo is not a celestial metaphor but a man who forgets to replace the olive oil.
Young love says, βI cannot live without you.β
Old love says, βPlease live. Also, you left the window open again.β
Intense, doomed love activates the same reward circuitry as risk-taking. The brain adores danger wrapped in romance. It floods with dopamine and adrenaline. Long-term love shifts into oxytocin and attachment. Less fireworks. More hearth fire.
Fireworks impress the village. Hearth fire feeds it.
Act V, Scene 2.5: twenty-five years later.
Juliet in spectacles, arguing about whether they can afford new shutters. Romeo slightly balding, still dramatic, declaring, βBut soft! What light through yonder budget breaks?β Juliet rolling her eyes because someone has to be the adult.
There is comedy in the ordinary. And tenderness. Mundane love is not less intense. It is just less loud.
And when the myth of eternal passion collapse under the weight of practical reality? Fights about socks or raising a child who elopes with a bakerβs apprentice and thinking, βAbsolutely not. We tried that.β
Love that grows old together is braver than love that dies young.
Death freezes potential. Staying tests it.
Shakespearean scenes. βAct VI: The Mortgage.β
or βAct VII: The Stomach Flu.β
The world romanticises tragic endings because they are tidy. Real love is not tidy. It is repetitive. It is stubborn. It is occasionally bored and then unexpectedly luminous.
And in a strange way, that is more radical than poison in a crypt.
Teenage tragedy is operatic because it is incomplete. It never has to metabolise reality. It is all crescendo, no maintenance. Of course it feels beautiful. It has not been stress-tested.
But staying married for forty years? That is a lab experiment in human psychology. Or an attachment theory with grocery receipts.
Loving fiercely at seventeen is easy.
Loving kindly at seventy is a craft.
One is combustion.
The other is carpentry.
And carpentry builds houses people actually live in.
It is not mocking love – it is sneering at the addiction to spectacle.
βMy bounty is as boundless as the seaβ¦β
Vs
βMy patience is as boundless as the laundry.β
βThus with a kiss I dieβ¦β
Vs
βThus with a sigh, I shall pay the water bill.β
Tragedy absolves us from responsibility. They did not fail or drift. They did not grow incompatible. They were robbed by fate.
But ordinary loyalty? That requires maintenance. Micro-choices. Tiny surrenders of ego.
It is less cinematic. It is more ethical.
The world barely notices faithful love because it is stable. Stable things do not trend.
No one writes ballads about βWe calmly resolved our disagreement and renewed our insurance.β
But that quiet loyalty? That is radical.
What if the greatest love story ever told is just two people choosing each other on a Tuesday when nothing special is happening.
