What Love Is (for me)

Today is Valentine’s day so I decided to write about love.  I know, I know, what a cliche’. Maybe I should apply to work for Hallmark.  (FYI, I applied there in my early twenties when I thought I wanted to be a greeting card writer…)

Don’t vomit yet though.  Most of what love means to me is actually the ordinary, the grunt work of being in a long relationship with my family that is authentic and comical.  In fact, these things came to mind for me when I reflected on LOVE the past several days.

Love for me is these ten things:

1. Love is wanting to kiss my spouse first thing in the a.m. even though we both have horrible “morning breath.”  We can somehow look past that though, especially after 13 years of marriage.

2. Love is cooking for my family even when I don’t want to and I’m tired because I know it’s good for all of us to have a nutritious meal and sit at the table together to share our food.

3. Love is my husband and I having middle of the day sex and getting into it when our bodies suddenly hit each other in the right way to make a noise that sounds like a fart and we laugh about it for two minutes before we get back to our love-making business.

4. Love is catching my two daughters being nice to each other without noticing me or me threatening them.  I simply find them hugging each other or reading books together and I melt just a little bit.

5. Love is finding a random note in my desk that my husband left me the last time he stopped by or if he emails me to say “I love you” for no reason other than to say it.

6. Love is laughing about a movie we are watching or even one we saw a decade ago  together but my husband and I still find it funny and worth quoting together years later.

7. Love is coming home from a long day and the first thing you want to do is hug that person you’re so lucky to be married to.  Then the hugs of my kids soon follow and my whole heart is overflowing with joy.

8. Love is my spouse holding my hair back when I’ve been sick and throwing up.  He is not grossed out at all by this. He’s concerned and nursing me back to good health again.

9. Love is finding a clean kitchen and an organized closet when I didn’t ask for it or expect it but my partner knew it would help us out greatly.

10. Love is realizing that my life is like a holiday almost every day.  In fact I don’t need a card, or candy, or a sonnet or poem, or jewelry or roses.  All the ordinary and daily moments that many people take for granted (even me previously), I see more and more of as blessings in my life.  The doing for others, the loving and feeling love in return is what make my life so special.