Love

Image by Heather of We Met in a Bar

I know that we are way past Valentine's Day, but I had the opportunity to reflect a little bit on love this past weekend. It was the first time I had seen my honey since Valentine's Day weekend. We have only been able to see each other one weekend every three weeks since the New Year and it's just plain difficult. It always takes a while to build intimacy and get used to the fact that we are actually together. And sometimes it feels like as soon as we get to that happy comfortable place it's time to leave again. Which brings me to my reflection on love. I have this preconcieved notion that because we don't see each other very often, when we do, we should act and feel very intensely in love. Like I should always want to be smooching him or staring dreamily into his eyes. And I don't. Sometimes I just feel comfortable like the way you felt cuddled up with your blankey. It's just the comfort of spending time with my best friend. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of smooching. I just mean that I enjoy our time together the most when I am not pressuring myself to feel or act like a star-crossed lover. Perhaps none of this is surprising in any way to anyone reading this. But for me it's an adjustment--loving in a peaceful comfortable way instead of an intense all-consuming way. And accepting that even though I don't feel intensely in love with my fiance all the time, that doesn't mean we need to re-examine our decision to get married. At least someone else agrees with me:

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in love which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two. "
-- Captain Corelli's Mandolin