If I had only known...

When Jim and I first started talking we used to send each other questions back and forth over email. It started off small, where do you live, what do you do, how many people are in your family, etc.

After a little while we ran out of small talk and started getting into some more deep thoughts. Things like what I posted last week. What is your perfect day? What do you think will make you happy? What is the worst moment you can remember in your life? What are 10 things about you that people don't always know?

Last week as I was taking my trip down memory lane I came across this one: What do I feel true love is?

It is amazing to me to read back over all of this stuff knowing what I know now but didn't know then. It is even more amazing to me to realize that everything I wanted that I never in a million years thought I would find, I now have in my life.

Sometimes, if you dare to dream, you just might find exactly what you're looking for.

05/22/09

I realize that you sent me this question telling me that it would be a fun one, but for me, it is not an easy question to answer. What do I feel like true love is? I am not sure. I could tell you a million things that I feel like it is not. Which in turn, perhaps could be exactly what it should be.

Again, I am a simple person. Hearing the phone ring, realizing that it is that person on the other end and not dreading answering it but instead being kind of excited to talk to them, even after several years of being with them, that would be part of it.

I honestly don't know how to quantify what it should feel like without resorting to your cop out answer of I will just know or it will just feel like true love. I'm not sure that is an answer. Is there one single person that can fill your heart with joy? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it is what you want it to be. Somewhere there has to be some sort of connection. Some joy when you see them and excitement to know that when you're 80, God willing, they will still be there with you.

Perhaps 14 years and two bad relationships have made me a bit cynical of love. I know it shouldn't have to be work. And not in a way like you should never have to work out your differences but in a way like you should never have to change your fundamental being to make someone be in love with you. You should be able to just be and that should be enough. They might not like all parts of you but as a whole they should love you the way you are.

Again, for me, a hard concept. I haven't liked myself much in the past and even now have a pretty critical image of myself and my body. Somewhere along the line I just figured if I was skinnier, funnier, prettier, he would have loved me more.

Do you see where this is going? Do you see what sort of a Pandora's box you opened up by just asking this question? I know all of the things it shouldn't be and all of the things I want so DESPERATELY for it to be, but there is a part of me that fears I will never be able to get there.

For me, I feel like true love is sitting in a room and seeing that person cross the room and knowing that you know all of their secrets and they know yours and you still get butterflies when you think of what may happen when you finally make it home with them. I have friends who are madly in love with their husbands. I see them and I see happiness. Happiness should definitely be a part of true love.

Never being able to imagine your life without someone, knowing that they are there because you WANT them there and not because you NEED them there, still getting butterflies in your stomach when they whisper sweet nothings in your ear in a room full of strangers.

See... I'm bad at this. All of this rambling and not one coherent answer to a question you thought would be easy to answer. So... I'm just going to send this and take a pass. I don't know the answer. Maybe some day I will. Maybe I already do and I just can't put it into words right now....

05/22/09

Ok, it took me awhile but I finally thought of it....

You roll over in the morning, 10 years and 2 kids later and there is NO one else you would rather see lying next to you.

That's what it feels like to me.....