Little bit of love...

Funny how you spend the beginning of your relationships thinking that you love someone. Floating on a high from rush after rush of oxytocin. Always having something to talk about, constantly searching and learning, revelling in the bright sparks of newness. Lust is deceiving, convincing you that it is love, whispering that this is it, this is the one. And then suddenly the bells are ringing, and the vows are spoken, and you’re rushing into your happily ever after, not knowing what exactly happily ever after entails.

Days turn into years and the fire of lust smoulders. Conversations wane and newness turns into the bland continuous loop of routine. The idea of love is forgotten; lost in grocery lists and laundry, slipping through the cracks between homework and dance lessons.

And then something happens. Something that shakes the very foundation upon which you have built your life. Something to make you realize that what you thought was routine, turned out to be true love all along.

Sometimes it takes an atomic bomb of sorts to blow everything apart, just so you can discover what love is while sifting through the pieces. Realizing that the difference between love and lust is a connection that takes years to build. A partnership. A dance that you both know every step to, that you take turns leading.

It is more than late night messaging and flirtatious remarks. It is years of laughter and gain and tears and loss. The ability to communicate with a single look across a room. To read a person’s mood by the change of the air in the space. To know their every gesture, every scar, every curve. To know that nobody else on earth knows this person like you, and nobody else on this earth knows you like them.

It is easy to think that you love someone before experiencing them in the throws of the worst moments of their lives. In the beginning, everything is perfect. When you don’t know someone, there is no reason for conflict. Nothing to disagree on.

To care for someone when they are ill, to withstand their deflected anger, to comfort their deepest sadness, and to remain steady through it all, is love. To throw stones and scream and self destruct and have someone standing by your side when the dust settles, is love.

Throughout the lengthy life of a marriage, darkness is inevitable in the same way night comes after day. And one person may be left to hold the torch for the other while they navigate their way through. The key is to remember, that the sun always rises again, and if one holds the torch when the other can’t, there will always be light. There will always be hope. There will always be love.