love
As a wedding venue owner, I have the pleasure of witnessing love at one of its most beautiful moments. Today, I thought I might take a step back to share the complicated and beautiful ways I see love…
Love is mysterious. More than likely, no two humans hold the same conceptual view of love nor the same emotional relationship with love. It’s ethereal and abstract, defying definition in all forms. Sometimes it changes? I’m not sure on that one. For me it hasn’t changed so much as, I thought it was love but it turned out to be something else. Or maybe, my definition of it changed altogether. Love is mysterious.
Love is fun. That feeling when you were a kid and you found a giant block of ice, and you led a group of kids to form a club. And you’re making surreally magical things happen right now. Now you’re a princess on the fort, that unreal magical joy. That’s the kind of joy love brings. But the next day when you show up and the schoolchildren (now enemies) tell you they’re kicking you out of the club because Matthew just became the new ruthless leader? That feeling = break-ups. But true love is ecstatic, because you share the world with a soul you adore. Joy that you get to laugh with their laugh every day. A joy that even on your worst days, shines brightly through your floorboards, giving you light to make it through the dark.
Love smells. From morning breath to cologne, to natural scents and shampoo. It’s all your personal love perfume. I have an annoyingly strong sense of smell, so this is important, those smells leave as big of a love imprint as the laughs. A stranger love imprint, but an imprint nonetheless.
On that note, Love is weird. At least for me, it’s weird. It’s the moments behind his desk when I’m dancing like a fool while he tries to make a serious phone call. It’s the times we sing like dorky teenagers to our own awful awful lyrics. It’s watching Elf on Thanksgivings and Die Hard on Christmas. It’s screaming between tickles you got for splashing him with water.
Love is peace. Peace in knowing you are secure, safe from the world. Peace in knowing you are not going to be abandoned. Peace you are valued, respected, and love. Peace that even when you face health or financial crises, you have someone there to hold your hand, and walk knee deep right through the crises with you.
Love is unconditional. I don’t have to be less or more of anything. I can be myself, screw ups and all. He can be himself, screw ups and all. Love is obsessing about each others happiness and never letting go.
