What Love Is Really Like

I guess I used to think that love was supposed to be like the movie "The Notebook". Mostly because I love that movie; the crazy out of control love, passion that burned like wildfire in their lives, the gradual ascent the little steps that lead them to that love, the part where she sees him in the newspaper and the spark is lit and she has to go see him one "last time", the ride on the river that ends with kissing in the rain, the moment when she pulls back up to the house and she just shrugs her shoulders as if she couldn't help but return to him and finally the part at the end when they die together in the same bed holding hands as their last gesture in this life together.

When I look back on the time I've known Kevin and the first time I realized that I loved him, my life has been a less compacted version of the notebook, it didn't take place in an hour and a half, but over a year. I didn't at first think that Kevin and my love could even live up to the love of "The Notebook" or any Nicholas Sparks movie for that matter, but it does! Just because their isn't an hour and a half movie about it, that's no reason our love isn't as strong. I say this because loving Kevin completely swept me off my feet and took me by surprise, I can't even believe it now.

I wasn't sure about marrying Kevin because the world made me think that my love had to be crazy and passionate and take my breath away from me all the time, it didn't then but it does now. Marrying Kevin was the best decision I have ever made. Our love was a little seed when we were dating, I don't even think we knew what love was then; now that we're married it's growing even more. It won't become a tree or a flower or what it's meant to be for many years to come. That's why "the notebook" is so great, because it shows their love turn into a flower. A young love that keeps through time and hardships and struggles... one of my favorite lines from that movie:
Young Noah: Would you just stay with me?
Young Allie: Stay with you? What for? Look at us, we're already fightin'
Young Noah: Well that's what we do, we fight... You tell me when I am being an arrogant son of a bitch and I tell you when you are a pain in the ass. Which you are, 99% of the time. I'm not afraid to hurt your feelings. You have like a 2 second rebound rate, then you're back doing the next pain-in-the-ass thing.
Young Allie: So what?
Young Noah: So it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard. We're gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, for ever, you and me, every day.

That's what love is, working at it every day and looking back to see the miracles that happened in your love along the way. One of the biggest reasons I decided to marry Kevin is because a wise friend told me a story about the first time she remembered being in love with her husband, and that's what she held onto when times were hard. That's what I do too. I remember being on Lake Shasta holding on to Kevin while we rode around on the seadoo; he hopped off to go on this rope swing and left me on the seadoo... as he flipped off that rope swing, I knew I loved that crazy, adventurous boy. :) For some reason I knew then without a doubt that there was something special about him, that's a memory that I will keep in my heart forever... love comes easy, not hard... and that's what love really is.