Love is not a feeling, it's an act of your will

Today we are having our first "date" in two years. The last time we went out without children was our second wedding anniversary, two years ago with me pregnant with Morgan. It has been a really romantic day, just being the two of us - though wierd, really wierd. Neither of us miss this much, it isn't as if we don't get time alone when the children are asleep (even if usually Morgan is asleep next to us) and it isn't that we don't get to do grown up things, date, go out. We just do those things with children along too and we really like it that way.

But there was something special about being undistracted today. A feeling that for me isn't possible in the first year anyhow really, and that is a difficult state to encourage at the best of times. Undistracted, focussed on each other. But we both have been remembering something recently - that yes we love each other and are commited to each other, but also we still are really very much in love. The mushy feelings aren't obvious, when tired, when frustrated, when rubbing along in everyday life, when worrying about money. When we pause, then we know.

A friend recently said to me when I commented that marrying Martin when I didn't know him very well was a risk - she said that commiting 100% to someone, no matter how well you know the person and no matter how trouble-free something is, it's always a risk. You can never see inside someone's head and you can never be certain that your own motivations are perfect, nothing is risk free - and that sometimes the longer people know each other the more the try to con themselves that things are good when they aren't. I think that's true.

I talked to another friend about her marriage - which she is staying in at cost to herself. She said that she has no regrets, that she would not have chosen for her life to take another path. Whatever pain there is now, she knows that they truly loved each other and that is never a mistake. It may be past, what is left might be barely two strangers who are simply sheltering a child and no longer each other. But what was, that was worth any ammount of pain in the present. What an amazing woman.

Meanderings on love nearly concluded, with one more thought. Even if at some point in the future we mess this up... Even if at some point we ruin what is so whole and good... It was worth it. To be truly loved, and to give everything for him, to be two individuals and one unit, it is worth it. Both the struggle in the past and present, and any future turmoil.