I've been thinking a lot about love today.
But the love I'm thinking about is a completely different kind of love.
It's beautiful, exciting and completely terrifying. It's amazing and breathtaking and brave and absolutely insane. But it is also sappy...and cutesy...and it has been known to inspire a great assortment of songs, books, sonnets and poems...
It's the kind of love that makes a boy chase a girl, long after her parents said no.
He still asks, and he asks, and he asks twice more...and eventually she can go.
The kind of love that makes a boy wear a tie, a nice shirt and some pressed slacks,
All so that he can take her to their first Homecoming Dance.
It's the kind of love that makes a boy dawn a skirt...a pom pom...and a set of double D's,
In front of everyone he knows at a Powder-Puff game, in less than 50 degrees...
This love takes hold, and never fully lets go - no matter the changes, the choices or years.
Through the failures and successes, the celebrations and the devastations, the hopes and all the fears.
Through the distance, through the forgiveness and down some roads not many know...
Though once forgotten, it was remembered, and now this love will forever grow.
This love is the kind of love that makes a boy become a man,
take that step and take her hand.
The kind of love that makes a girl become a wife,
and the two to make a life.
Ok, ok...so maybe my poem isn't exactly Shakespearean...but it was cute, wasn't it?
We're adorable, I know.
Anyway, with all that has been going on in this world, and in my own life, lately, I've been thinking a lot about how different my life would be right now without the love of that boy. Together we have been on quite the journey. We've followed our hearts, sometimes more than we should have. Through the ups and the downs of the life we've made for ourselves, we have always come out closer and more in love than even the day we said, "I do." As Harold and I close a chapter in our lives of prolonged separation, we can both look at each other and honestly say that we made it through with a stronger marriage, a more realistic worldview and a better understanding of just how much each person can take. And though I would never, EVER, choose to go back and do ANY of our deployments ever again, I am learning to be thankful for the time we had apart. Because now, more than ever, I am sure...absolutely sure...that my husband is truly the love of my life.
This is the kind of love that makes me want to write poems, sing songs and be silly. It makes me a better person...a better wife, a better mother. My husband loves me the way that I could never be loved by anyone else. He chooses to love me unconditionally, from now until forever...and this is the love that I just can't help but think about today.
