Love

Everybody thinks they know what love is at some point in their lives... and usually the first time (or few) that love turns out to be wrong. It's not to say that the two people "in love" don't care deeply for one another, but circumstance tends to play more of a role than genuine love. Whether the two people have fallen into a comfort zone which they are afraid to leave, or some other outside reason keeps them together... Regardless, the love isn't true.

I should know. I've been in enough bad relationships to write a book. Hell, I even have a past marriage to add to that list. Since hindsight is 20/20 I can clearly see that the "love" was merely misplaced emotions, convenience, and fear of being alone. Perhaps my ex-husband would tend to disagree, but for me it wasn't real. That wasn't where I was meant to be in life, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself otherwise. So I left. And now... I've found love.

Every relationship starts out with that feeling in the pit of your stomach. The butterflies when you see the other person and the desire to spend every second of everyday with them. Everything is fun, and good, and right with the world. People will tell you that this fades over time, and that it is "normal" for this to occur. From the things I've been told in my life, that's just how love grows. It turns from puppy dogs and butterflies, to sitting on the couch and being pleasant to each other, almost out of courtesy. I hate to break it to everyone, but THAT ISN'T TRUE LOVE!

How can I be so sure? Because I've been there. I've had the complacent, lackluster, supposedly "normal" love. You don't need to settle for that! Now I'm not telling everyone to break it off and go find someone else if you happen to fit into this general description. Some people are okay with that kind of love, and that's fine... but that's not me. I want the love story, the happiness, the constant butterflies. And thank God, I found it.

Do you know what's it's like to look forward to the end of the day because you can't wait to see your love again? And no, it's not because you need him to do something around the house... you just want to be with him, and talk, and laugh, and hug him until your arms are tired. That is every single day of my life, and I love it. I love, love.

Love is easy to maintain, but difficult to find... I understand that. Like I said, I've settled before. Then I was knocked off my feet at the most unexpected of times. Everything was so wrong in my life, but there was this love just shining like a beacon that I couldn't ignore. And it hasn't flickered or faded, it just grows stronger with each passing day. It's like nothing I have ever experienced before, and I just know that this is it. This is real. This is what love is meant to be.

Love is going to give me horrible wrinkles from laughing everyday. Love is going to tear me apart when he's gone. Love is going to make my heart nearly burst out of my chest with the simplest of gestures and words. Sounds terrible, right? It's not. It's the most wonderful, amazing, unexplainable, feeling in the world and I am lucky enough to live it every single day. That is what love is meant to be.

I'm not entirely sure what I meant to accomplish with this post. I think I intended for it to be about how hard these past two weeks have been while I've been in TX and J has been in NJ. The whole thing about love was just going to be my opening, but see how love just takes over sometimes? While these past two weeks have truly been a long, and arduous test for me, it has opened my eyes to how important J is in my life.

Now that's not to say that I'm entirely unable to be independent and/or function on my own... but J and I have had a very unconventional relationship from day one. We have been able to spend nearly every day together since the beginning. While this would cause an unhealthy dependence for some, for us it has just worked. Maybe it's because we both knew what we were looking for after negative life experiences. Maybe we just agreed on more than we disagreed about. Maybe we were just meant to find each other when the timing was right. Whatever the reason, it works for us.

I've known for a long time that he is who I'm meant to be with, but this extended absence has served to firmly reinforce that in my mind. This is not to say that from now on we'll never fight or argue because I have validation of our love... I'm sure that couldn't be farther from the truth. We're human, we will have disagreements. That's life. But being able to take a step back and look at our lives separately, versus our life together, has served a much greater purpose than him simply finishing up another couple weeks of work back in NJ.

I can't fully explain what it has done, but it's good. As difficult as it has been for me, in the end it will be a positive experience. One which I may not see the full extent of until much later on... Or at least until after he comes home tomorrow.

All in all it has been a rough couple of weeks for me. New home, new state, new job, new life... all starting at once without my rock, my support system, my other half. Sure we talked and used FaceTime everyday, but it's not the same. I'm counting the hours until he comes home, the solo part of this journey is over. However, the experience isn't.

I never once doubted our love, but I think the old saying is true, "absence makes the heart grow fonder." And now I really understand why. Sometimes it takes more than the 8 hours each day that we're apart due to work, to really make me see just how important he is to my daily existence. This might not change how much I love him, or how I've always known this was meant to be, but it has provided me with a reaffirmation of my feelings and a sense of respect for our life together. It's not something to ever be taken for granted, because I now know how much it hurts when he's not around.

I've always enjoyed every day that we've had together, but now I have a much greater appreciation for that time. I'll still spend my days counting the hours until we get home and can be together again. And I'll still have butterflies, and want to hug him until my arms are tired... Like I said, THAT is true love. But now I'll cherish those moments together in a way that I couldn't before. Love has changed my life for the better, and I have to hold on to every moment...