Risking romance helps keep heart intact.

Byline: WRITE ON By Bobbi Hildebrand For The Register-Guard

I would like to experience romantic love at least once more in my life. God, it's great when powerful feelings you're having for someone are mutual.

It happens so rarely, at least I think for most of us, that it's preciousness manifests itself hundredfold when it does. It is the single greatest, rarest and most confounding commodity known to man. It can scare the hell out of you and feel completely exhilarating all at the same time, the risk reward ratio is that equal.

And it hurts like hell if it doesn't work out, when all the giddiness has spun out of your head and you begin to realize that you're not going to be able to make it last together forever. That, in fact, you barely have enough in common to make it last through dinner together.

And so you run the gamut of any number of bitter, awful and cynical feelings and say, "Well, I'll never do that again." You watch romantic comedies in which actors spout lines such as, "When I saw them, I just knew," and you're like, knew what? What are they talking about? Your friends tell you things like, "The right one will come along when you least expect it," and you nod in understanding but secretly believe they're out of their minds.

The thought of spending "forever" with someone takes on the pall of a cruel joke to you, because what is "forever" anyway? Does anybody really even do that anymore?

But time passes, sometimes a lot of it. The wounds begin to heal and the anger fades away, and the next thing you know, someone's flirting with you -someone cute! - when you haven't been flirted with since what seems like the Pleistocene era, and feelings lurch up within you that you forgot ever existed.

Thinking about that person, wanting to know every tiny little thing about them, and hoping that the next time you see them, you will be able to say exactly the right thing to them without bits of whatever you had for lunch springing from between your teeth.

Wondering if fate may play a hand and allow you to run into one another in the produce aisle, or on a dance floor.

Looking for them in crowds or on the street to see if fate is on your side. Finding it unbelievable that you're feeling this way when, why? You hardly know them. You don't even know if they're the right one for you.

And it scares the hell out of you, because you've been down this road before, and you want to be wise enough not to make the same mistakes over again.

And what if it's not mutual, written in the stars, meant to be? What, then? You have your work, you have your family and friends. You take long, hot baths and marvel at the wings of geese going 'swishswishswish' as they fly over you. And you have faith in yourself because you know that by being able to say, "Once more into the breach," you, and your heart, are alive and intact.

Bobbi Hildebrand, 31, is a medical records supervisor for a group of specialty physicians in Eugene.

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Mail your typed, double-spaced, 500- to 800-word manuscript to Write On, The Register-Guard, P.O. Box 10188, Eugene, OR 97440. Attach a cover letter with your age, address, phone number, occupation and a couple of sentences of biographical information. There is no payment for a published column.

CAPTION(S):

Hi there-I am submitting a piece for your Write On column, which I hope you will consider publishing. I am 31 years old and work as a medical records supervisor for a group of specialty physicians here in Eugene, where I have I lived most of my life. I write at when I go home at night, and hope to make something more than just a hobby out of it. I appreciate that the Guard makes this opportunity available to the community, and I especially enjoyed the piece by the LTD driver you ran a couple of weeks ago. I hope that the one I have sent you measures up. Thank you for I our time. Sincerely,