Romance
In my life, there have been a handful of couples that capture in the smallest of their interactions the deepest sense of love and respect for one another. You can tell just by looking at the ways they look at one another how deeply in love they are, how they’re falling over again, further and farther. It’s his glance that says “no man alive is luckier than I am”. It’s the way she moves to him, by him, near him, as if they were magnets.
I doubted the existence of this love at many points — such a thing is natural when you’ve had your heart broken or been deceived by someone you trusted. I’ve gone into many relationships believing it was the One, that he was the One, to discover otherwise. At one point, I thought the love I was looking for was a collective dream, a product of poetry and stories and longing. But life proved that theory wrong.
While I was visiting Napa, Melissa and Sean showed me how love can light up a whole family, how it can be true and passionate and nurturing, how it can grow rather than fade (and grow so much that a whole new amazing little person appears). Another friend named Melissa and her husband Joel have shown me the joy and laughter and beauty in love, how you can create a home filled with warmth and art and memories.
These couples have an easiness with one another, a sense of fully settling into not only who they are as part of the duet, but who they are as individuals. It’s there in the little ways, like how my friends Jenifer and Troy have mentioned that they go to bed together every night, just sitting and reading together before the lights go out.
Some of the men I’ve dated have been so different from me that I’ve forgotten that sometimes a partner can fit into your sacred spaces, can challenge you to grow, can make you feel safe even as you’re leaning into your fears.
I might still be looking, but at least I have an idea of what I’m looking for.
Where did you learn about love? What did you discover about it?
this is so beautiful.
i learned the most about love from getting my heart broken. over and over again. so finally when i met this person who required me to operate at a new frequency, a frequency where i was 100% respected, heard, and an individual i couldn’t help but take this lesson to my new heart that i had grown.
those broken hearts occur for a reason. i am ever grateful for each one.
In my previous relationships, I was in love as much with the person, but behind it, I think, an “ideal.” Ever since I’ve known my husband, I see how he helps me value what’s honestly-me: my weird and dorky side, and acknowledging when I taking myself way too seriously. From my parents, I’ve learned that love takes patience and it is worth all the work you put into the relationship.
Oh, my friend. I am truly honored to be mentioned in this beautiful post. It makes me happy & smile ear to ear, to know that Joel’s and my love for each other shines through. YOU will find your perfect counterpart, I just know. And what a lucky guy he will be. Thank you for thinking of us….
xoxo
Melis
I learned (and still learn) about love from my parents. They’ll celebrate their thirtieth anniversary in June this year, and they’re still adorably in love with each other. I’ve seen them go through the work of marriage and through the easier parts, and I’ve carried the things I learned from them into my own marriage.
Some time ago (before I met my husband), I realized that I didn’t believe in “the one” as a single soulmate in all the world, a person that you must hope to happen across at some point. Instead, I realized that I believe in choosing the one–finding that person with whom you are compatible and falling in love and then continuing to choose love even when you’re not in love.
I learned about love with my husband. I remember watching romantic movies after I met my husband and not having them affect me the way they used to because I felt as if I wasn’t searching for that “romantic, loving” feeling anymore. I had already found that feeling and was living it for real. Now, after 16 years of marriage, it isn’t all romance, but it is comfort. There is a knowing. There is trust. There is respect. As far as interests, we are not “made” for each other. He doesn’t read, like I do. He is not spiritual, like I am. We don’t like the same TV shows. I am not into the same kind of music that he is. But…those things really haven’t mattered at all. We like, and love, each other in our lives. Love is never what you really expect it to be.
I’m still learning about love. I don’t think I’ll truly know it until I’ve experienced it both ways: loving someone and being loved. I think it’s so great that you have close friends who are such a great example to you. I have two friends who were just recently married that have that kind of ease with each other, but I never get to see them. I suppose I need to bring more love into my life.