I am lucky enough to have grown up with two parents who truly love each other. It’s quite amazing, to be raised around love like that. In today’s society, love is a delicate thing. People are always trying to define love when they don’t appreciate it for what it really is. It kind of reminds me of a quote from Raymond Carver’s series of short stories, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," “It ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love.”
From what I’ve seen over the years, love is so much more than a word. Love is physical and love is emotional. Love is commitment. My parents have probably one of the best relationships that a man and a woman could have together. I grew up with friends with divorced parents, and even sadder, parents who were not divorced, but were also not in love.
Marriage is defined as a union between two people. Union is defined as the action of joining. I may only be nineteen, but I’m able to understand that you can’t have a marriage without love, and you sure as hell can’t have love without union. My parents have been married for almost 21 years and they couldn’t be happier together. I see how they act when they’re together and when they’re apart. I hear how they talk about each other. They’re even always posting about each other on Facebook. And every time I see one of those Facebook posts it brings me to, or close to, tears. They’re absolutely in love with each other.
That’s not to say that they don’t argue. They do. But one thing that people don’t pay attention to when it comes to love is that there are plenty of disagreements. Nobody wants to hear about the about the hardships that come with loving someone. But, the good news is that if you care enough about the relationship, then you’ll make it. The want for resolution, for love, has to be present in both parties.
Love is romanticized a lot. You read all these books and see all these movies that are not only cheesy as f*ck, but aren’t always accurate. I don’t know, maybe I’m biased because I absolutely hate romance stories. Anyway, I was saying: loving someone isn’t always pretty. It’s actually pretty hard, from my own experience and just from what I’ve heard.
Speaking of my own experience, this quote from Jane Austen very much applies to how I live my life, “…I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature”. I would like to take this opportunity to specifically thank my parents for making me into this person. Without your love to base my friendships and relationships off of I think I would be lost, like a lot of people are when it comes to love.
My parents have given me so much confidence in love. Their love has taught me what kind of future I want to have. Their love is beautiful and incredible and can defeat anything. The love I have for my parents is out of this solar system, and I hope one day my husband and I have the same kind of passion for each other as my parents have for one another.
“When love is not madness it is not love.” Pedro Calderón de la Barca
