Love is a verb

I’ve fallen in love a few times in my life. There were guys in college and after that I was head over heels for. Until I met Mike though, I had never actually LOVED anyone.

Here’s the thing about falling in love: eventually, you have to get back up.

Cinderella and Prince Charming had to come home from the honeymoon eventually. They had to decide who would do the dishes and the laundry and the yard work. And eventually, who would get up with the baby in the middle of the night or stay home from work with a sick kid or whose family they would spend the holidays with. And some days they would realize that they hadn’t had a chance to even touch each other or say “I love you” or even ask “How was your day?” Some days they would be so busy making breakfasts, and lunches, and dinners, and being interrupted every 35 seconds by little voices asking for milk/water/food/help wiping/etc. There would come a day when they realized that so many of the things they needed to say or meant to say to each other hadn’t been said. If they had a chance to gaze longingly into each other’s eyes it would be because they were in a standoff over who would get up to clean up the milk that had just been spilled.  

And they would fight. Over little things like someone (ahem, Charming…) leaving dirty dishes in the sink. Those little things would become big things that became indicators of respect or caring. There would be yelling and crying and nights worrying how they could keep going. And sometimes there wouldn’t be any of those things at all because they were weary and lost and not knowing how two people who are SO different could POSSIBLY keep the fairy tale alive.

And in today’s world, they’d go to a divorce attorney and split their assets and come up with a schedule for the kids and shake hands and shrug and say “Well, we tried…”

Here’s the other thing about falling in love: the very act of ‘falling’ suggests something accidental and out of our control. After all, nobody PURPOSEFULLY falls. It’s sudden and uncomfortable and sometimes it hurts. It’s not something you decide to do. It’s something that happens to you.

Here’s the thing about ACTUALLY, really LOVING someone: it’s not accidental. It doesn’t “just happen.” It’s purposeful and intentional and it’s ACTIVE.

It is EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. It is someone leaving dirty dishes in the sink and taking care of sick babies and looking across the dinner table and wanting so bad to walk over and hug the other person and just *be* together but not being able to because you are covered in spit up or cutting someone’s meat or arguing over bed time. It is waking up every day tired because you have a baby who doesn’t love sleep as much as you do and going to work thinking “I wish we could just go have margaritas on the patio tonight” but going home to have spaghetti instead and giving the kids a bath while the other one washes dishes and wanting to have sex but feeling not just out of shape but in the shape of a rhinoceros.

It is looking at the two little people you created together and feeling at once exhilarated and overwhelmed by both exhaustion and love.

It is sometimes thinking, “If I had known that when we were dating…” And then remembering you’re wearing sweat pants. Again. For the 78^th night in a row.

It is telling your Prince Charming that you need more. It is him giving it his best every day. It is you putting up with some shit because you realize you put out quite a bit of shit too. It is looking in the mirror and knowing that some of the problems you have with him might be problems you have with yourself.

Loving someone is messy sometimes and exhausting and really hard but also really easy. Because you know that without that person, you’d be…well, not you. Without the two little people that keep you flabby and tired, you’d be…not you.

It is letting this crazy, messy, exhausting, incredible love shape you and mold you and realizing you are better for it. It is making a decision that you are NOT going to give up. Not ever. Because love is not something you fell into. It is something you chose. It is something you choose every day of your life.

And it’s working out who is going to do the dishes and the laundry and stay home with the sick kids. And it’s accepting that you are shaped like a rhinoceros but you need to have some naked time together and knowing  that you’ll probably be up with a baby sometime in the middle of the night. It’s waking up the next day and choosing it all over again. EVERY. SINGLE . DAY.

It’s knowing that society’s solution to shake hands and walk away isn’t an option. It’s knowing that the love stories on tv aren’t the full story and that the reward, the real joy, doesn’t come from the falling. It comes from the staying.

It’s in the smiles and the tears. It’s in the laughter and the little things like eating spaghetti together and seeing your love alive in two other little people. It’s in taking those little moments to snuggle next to each other at night or hold hands while walking to the park. It's in the moment when you know you look like a rhinoceros but you're treated like a super model. 

Love, REAL LOVE is active, and involved, and purposeful. Not accidental. Not something that just happens to you. It’s a choice.

Love is a verb. 

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