I quit everything. But I’ve never quit on love.
I love to love and I love being in love.
It’s the one thing I’m pretty good at, even if my significant others were not.
I’m a sappy person. In fact, I like chick flicks and, even more so, the romantic-comedy genre. For some reason, it’s easy for me to fall in love even though I’m scared to death of being heartbroken.
When you’re in love, you open yourself up to another person. Once your heart is open, you are vulnerable to attack.
Love is hard and complicated to understand. It’s not something you see, but rather something you can only feel. Sometimes, it can be hard to detect, especially if you’ve been heartbroken before. Nonetheless, soon you will recognize that you’re neck deep in it.
No matter how hard-knocks I pretend to be on the outside, on the inside I want to love and I want to be loved.
I want a lifelong happy marriage—that fairytale life that movies are written about—but love like that is hard to find. How do you know when you’ve found it?
Are you actually in love or do you just love love?
Love has so many unanswered questions. For women, it’s a complex feeling to grasp, but since we’re emotionally wired, we strive for that complexity. We want that feeling of knowing that we’re needed and cherished.
Love makes us feel beautiful, like we’re the only woman in the world.
It is hard not to get caught up with the idea of love or to spend your time searching for it. We’re women and we are very in touch with our emotions—especially love.
And while we search for love, we must remember never to obsess about it.
Because loving love sets you up for heartbreak. When you love love, you will try to turn anything into a fairytale romance. You must distinguish between the two, even though it is complicated. See beyond the idea of the fairytale and see the man that you are with. Do you really love him, or do you just want the fairytale wedding?
Remember to be patient with love. Never settle. You will find love, and if you are patient enough, you will have it the rest of your life.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
love will find me again
Ahh, love. It comes. It goes. It takes your breath away … leaves you floating on air. Then one day, it simply takes your breath … leaves you deflated, void of life, and gasping for the very air you once floated effortlessly on. But what goes up must come down, right? We fall passionately in love … can’t pull our otherwise rational head out of the clouds, not that we want to. Our love is intoxicating, empowering, and seemingly infallible. Little do we know? We trust that love so completely that before long, we take it for granted. Anything we take for granted, we neglect. A marriage neglected becomes a marriage ... fallible. What comes next? The better question may be what doesn’t come next? We may find ourselves in love limbo … somewhere between “in love” with our spouse and thinking to stay in-love with our spouse. No man’s land. We still love our spouse, but we’re not “in love” anymore. What now? Do we give up? Or do we fight for our marriage, rather than against it?
It happens every day to couples everywhere. Spouses fall out of love. They no longer feel that electric spark between themselves … no longer see in their spouse what they did once upon a time. They’re simply no longer happy with this person they vowed to love in “sickness AND health.” Of course, there are occasions when THINKING is the best choice. But more times than not, a couple who was once passionately in love can find their way back to that love...given a little effort and an open mind. Do you remember those heartfelt vows you pledged to your spouse? Do you remember the look in your spouse’s eyes when you were exchanging those vows? Do you remember the moment you said, “I do?” Do you remember the priest who wed you waving the “easy marriage” wand over your heads? Do you remember the marriage license containing a disclaimer? “Warning: Marriage will suck the life out of you. If you have a wandering eye, a short temper, a stubborn personality, a closed mind, or if you in any way, shape, or form classify yourself as HUMAN … you may want to consult your lawyer before entering into this contract!” Of course not! We don’t enter into marriage with the anticipation of separation. We’re too blinded by our love at the point of “I do.” But there will come a time … a time when you don’t share the same spark that once had the ability to set your whole “forest” ablaze … a time when you simply tolerate the other … a time when you no longer feel “in love” … a time when you wonder if divorce is inevitable.
You won’t be alone. When we say “I do,” it’s hard to imagine the profound reality of the next 50 years. As newlyweds, we’re infants in the world of marriage. We can’t comprehend the difficulty that awaits us … the stress of keeping mounting bills paid, raising kids whose primary job seems to be pulling us away from each other, meeting the needs of career, family, and life, in general. Romance is often times stuck on the back burner, metaphorically speaking, and forgotten about until we smell that “burning” stench lingering in the air. We forget to pay attention to it until we’re so far apart emotionally that it may seem too late … and we begin kicking around those word in our thoughts.
The fact is ALL marriages will go through these “dry” spells. This is the ebb and flow of marriage. Spouses fall in and out of love with one another all the time. We enter marriage “in love” …obviously. As the years pass and stress envelopes us, we may begin to neglect one another … and fall out of love. While we may still love each other (just as we love our family), we may not be “in love.” We may love him, but not like him very much anymore. We may wonder why we ever married this person to begin with. We may even be disgusted with our spouse on occasion. We may think there’s no hope … no way to get “it” back. Wrong again! By this stage in life, we should be growing accustomed to being … wrong … every now and then.
The beauty of love is that it tends to come full circle, much like that iconic, circular representation of it we exchange on the day we wed … the wedding band. Our love will start out in a state of romantic bliss. Bliss will fade. “Getting by” will become our daily struggle … but love will endure. That iconic symbol will withstand being left at home, being temporarily lost; being smudged by life’s daily messes … it will even withstand us outgrowing it (just as we do our love at times). But even with all the trials that band encounters, it remains an intact circle and very difficult to “break.”
Love will come and go. Someday, we’ll fall out of love with our spouse and find ourselves hovering in love limbo. But give it time … that love will return. Search for the charming, endearing things your spouse does, rather than focusing on the negative annoyances. One day your spouse will wink sensually at you, touch you lovingly, or kiss you in a way that reignites that “long been out” flame. That flame will cause your knees to grow weak, send your heart aflutter, and … hopefully, leave you in the throes of passion. All the things that made you fall in love in the first place will come rushing back to you … and possibly, leave you floating on air once again. On this day, your vision won’t be so utterly impeded by all of life’s messy trials. You’ll be able to see what initially attracted you to this person you pledged your life to. Once returned, that love will likely be stronger than ever before. After all, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger … right? Cliche, but true.
A love that once found us WILL find us again. We just have to do our part: be patient enough to wait for it and devoted enough to draw it a map.
It happens every day to couples everywhere. Spouses fall out of love. They no longer feel that electric spark between themselves … no longer see in their spouse what they did once upon a time. They’re simply no longer happy with this person they vowed to love in “sickness AND health.” Of course, there are occasions when THINKING is the best choice. But more times than not, a couple who was once passionately in love can find their way back to that love...given a little effort and an open mind. Do you remember those heartfelt vows you pledged to your spouse? Do you remember the look in your spouse’s eyes when you were exchanging those vows? Do you remember the moment you said, “I do?” Do you remember the priest who wed you waving the “easy marriage” wand over your heads? Do you remember the marriage license containing a disclaimer? “Warning: Marriage will suck the life out of you. If you have a wandering eye, a short temper, a stubborn personality, a closed mind, or if you in any way, shape, or form classify yourself as HUMAN … you may want to consult your lawyer before entering into this contract!” Of course not! We don’t enter into marriage with the anticipation of separation. We’re too blinded by our love at the point of “I do.” But there will come a time … a time when you don’t share the same spark that once had the ability to set your whole “forest” ablaze … a time when you simply tolerate the other … a time when you no longer feel “in love” … a time when you wonder if divorce is inevitable.
You won’t be alone. When we say “I do,” it’s hard to imagine the profound reality of the next 50 years. As newlyweds, we’re infants in the world of marriage. We can’t comprehend the difficulty that awaits us … the stress of keeping mounting bills paid, raising kids whose primary job seems to be pulling us away from each other, meeting the needs of career, family, and life, in general. Romance is often times stuck on the back burner, metaphorically speaking, and forgotten about until we smell that “burning” stench lingering in the air. We forget to pay attention to it until we’re so far apart emotionally that it may seem too late … and we begin kicking around those word in our thoughts.
The fact is ALL marriages will go through these “dry” spells. This is the ebb and flow of marriage. Spouses fall in and out of love with one another all the time. We enter marriage “in love” …obviously. As the years pass and stress envelopes us, we may begin to neglect one another … and fall out of love. While we may still love each other (just as we love our family), we may not be “in love.” We may love him, but not like him very much anymore. We may wonder why we ever married this person to begin with. We may even be disgusted with our spouse on occasion. We may think there’s no hope … no way to get “it” back. Wrong again! By this stage in life, we should be growing accustomed to being … wrong … every now and then.
The beauty of love is that it tends to come full circle, much like that iconic, circular representation of it we exchange on the day we wed … the wedding band. Our love will start out in a state of romantic bliss. Bliss will fade. “Getting by” will become our daily struggle … but love will endure. That iconic symbol will withstand being left at home, being temporarily lost; being smudged by life’s daily messes … it will even withstand us outgrowing it (just as we do our love at times). But even with all the trials that band encounters, it remains an intact circle and very difficult to “break.”
Love will come and go. Someday, we’ll fall out of love with our spouse and find ourselves hovering in love limbo. But give it time … that love will return. Search for the charming, endearing things your spouse does, rather than focusing on the negative annoyances. One day your spouse will wink sensually at you, touch you lovingly, or kiss you in a way that reignites that “long been out” flame. That flame will cause your knees to grow weak, send your heart aflutter, and … hopefully, leave you in the throes of passion. All the things that made you fall in love in the first place will come rushing back to you … and possibly, leave you floating on air once again. On this day, your vision won’t be so utterly impeded by all of life’s messy trials. You’ll be able to see what initially attracted you to this person you pledged your life to. Once returned, that love will likely be stronger than ever before. After all, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger … right? Cliche, but true.
A love that once found us WILL find us again. We just have to do our part: be patient enough to wait for it and devoted enough to draw it a map.
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