Love, Relationships, and My Somewhat Jumbled Thoughts

I stumbled upon a few blog posts this week written by the semi-famous blogger cjane. She wrote about her 5 loves and talked with her now husband (and 5th love) about their relationship. She is a great writer and her words really made me think about relationships and their multifaceted nature. Sometimes I think of the relationship between married couples as existing in one way. Like every couple has basically the same story of meeting, falling in love, taking the next step to be married, and then working through what life throws at you together. I guess to some extent that is true. But as I read about her descriptions of falling madly in love a few times over and then marrying the one she didn't necessarily fall madly in love with but instead decided to just make it work, I realized the VERY different relationships we all have. I like to think I am not naive and I try (and have since I began thinking about marriage while dating) to look at the realities of marriage and realize it is not all fun and games. And yet I can't help that each time I look back at my love story I realize it kind of was like the books and movies. And I still often (not all the time) feel that it is perfect bliss.

Take for example, the other night. I was standing at the kitchen sink after an intense work out taking sips of water in between gasps for air. Standing at the sink, I was looking directly at Peter who was in the front room quietly studying at his desk. And I started crying. Sometimes I see him as that untouchable high school boy who I could not believe liked me, ME, out of all the girls in our high school. He made me (and still does) want to be better. He helped me define who I would be for the rest of my life. He showed me what I should be looking for in friends and relationships and taught me how I should be acting toward the people I loved. He was, in my mind, an untouchable perfect angel that for some reason wanted to be around me.

Now with the everyday monotony of life and marriage, that feeling has somewhat worn off--I like to think I am more realistic about life in general and his imperfections, although he is still pretty close to perfect--but if I step back for just a moment and see him with the eyes I saw him before we were married, for those 4 years of knowing each other, I can't help but be overwhelmed that I married THAT GUY. Peter Sundwall for goodness sake! The man I loved and dreamed about marrying for NEARLY 4 YEARS! Did I ever think that would happen? Well, yes. And I hoped it would. But that fact that it actually did just overwhelms me.

For some--like cjane--they fully admit that they did not necessarily “fall in love” as depicted by our society. They just simply realized that they wanted to work at loving each other and living their lives together. I agree that a good marriage takes commitment to each other, because trying times do come no matter who you are. But I cannot say that I did not fall madly, deeply, giddy in love. Because I did. I fell hard. And those same feelings I felt while we were dating and engaged come back often. I realize that it may one day (from what I hear) wear off and that is why commitment is so important. But for now, after 14 months of marriage, I cannot think of a more perfect person that could make me any happier than I am now.  

Boy do I love this boy. . . man.