Day-in-and-Day-Out, For Better or Worse LOVE!

What is love?  There have been books written on this topic, songs sung about it, and many hearts filled or broken over it.

I’m talking, however, about real love.  Not the infatuation that one feels when first in love, but the meat and bones of love.  The day-in-and-day-out love.  The for better or worse love.

I believe that all of us have felt some sort love at one time or the other in various forms.  The love of parent for child, the love of friendship, the joy of young romantic love, the rush of hormonal love, but I want to talk today about forever love.

I am a very lucky woman.  When I was at my lowest, heart broken and hardening, life in shambles, body breaking down…in strolls my forever love.  

Oh, I’ve felt love before.  I both had and felt, from my father, a very close parental love.  My aunts (sans one) are amazing in how they share love.  In fact, my father’s sisters love you so much and so hard that sometimes it doesn’t just wrap around you, it clobbers you, like a wave that rushes full and strong toward you.  My uncles are fun and loving, my cousins phenomenal in their capacity for love.

In my younger years I, of course, felt the pangs of unrequited love, and love reciprocated…puppy love, as it were.  I got older and truly fell in love with a man that would eventually teach me that you can love someone utterly and have that love die a quick, pain-filled death.  It was during this time that I made great mistakes in my anger and hurt.  

It was in this time that I began to harden my heart.  When deep loves dies that quickly, it does something to the one wronged and you either slog through it and come out victorious, slog through it and let it harden you totally, slog through it and make mistakes and learn from them…or just give the heck up on love altogether.

I tended to be the slog through it, making some ridiculous mistakes, but coming out victorious type.  Thank a good, forgiving and loving God for that!

My for better or worse love comes in the form of a dark-haired, hazel-eyed, bespectacled mountain of a man.  

It doesn’t actually matter what physical form my day-in-and-day-out love presents itself, it is the content of that being that makes it something truly spectacular.

There I was, disillusioned, broken, hurting (I lived like that for 10 years), and becoming more and more physically ill and still my love came toward me.  

I’ve learned that meat and bones love will always come toward you, never run from you. 

The thing I’ve learned from my deep and abiding love…it is deep and abiding. 

•          My love tries to never hurt me intentionally and if he does so unintentionally he feels worse about it than I do. 
•          My love has my back.  Always.  What a thing!
•          My love assures me that not only am I good enough, to him…”as is” is the way he prefers it.
•          My love helps me discover things within myself that not only make me stronger but happier.
•          My love has seen me at my worse, and loves me more.
•          My love has seen me broken and bruised and has raised me up in prayer, and in spirit.
•          My love has seen me scared, held me close to his heart and has assured me that in the end…we’ll figure it out together, and really…what can’t we accomplish, when we do it together?
•          My love understands that sometimes, I can be controlling, and forgives me that.
•          My love understands that sometimes, I can be critical, and forgives me that.
•          My love looks at me without make-up and hair done and still finds me beautiful.
•          My love knows how to make me feel girlish and blush-ey.
•          My love knows I am actually a very determined girl, and that sometimes that means I’ll want to do things I should not, by myself.  He is smart enough to allow me to try and never say “you knew better” when the pain hits later…he knows that my independence, and keeping it as long as possible is paramount to me.  He hates that I go ahead and do it, but he allows me to complain afterward with just an “I’m sorry sweetheart.”
•          My love knows my history, the REAL history of my life.  He is the only person besides a couple friends and two cousins that I’ve shared it all with.  He knows the real me.  The ugly parts, the scary parts, the mean parts…we all have those, but he looks at me and assures me that even at my most unlovable, he loves me.
•          My love, loves my quirks!

The litany of things that my love has helped me with, or shown me, or lived through with me is long.  I could never list them all…but one thing stands out above anything I could ever write or express fully – When the going gets tough, my love is tougher, stronger, kinder and gentler.  Through his love, I too am tougher, stronger, kinder and gentler.

I won the lotto of life, and I won it later in life.  A co-worker believes that karma gives you something exceptional when you’ve been through the fire.  There might be something to that.