Our Happily Ever After

We have all read those books, or seen those movies, where the couple falls madly in love because they have the perfect person. They just so happened to find that person while browsing a hole-in-the-wall used book store, sitting at a small cafe, or reading a philosophical book under a giant elm tree in the park. He loves and supports her in exactly the way she has always dreamed and needed, and she does the same for him. Life is beautiful, no wrong can be done, tra-la-la, birds sing, and the world is perfect. They go off and everything is happily ever after.

That is a load of crap.

Everyone wants to find that love. Everyone wants to find the perfect person who will be everything they have always dreamed. We all long to finally step into our perfect world. 

We all want our happily ever after.

However, I beg to argue that this will never spontaneously happen. Yes, people will fall in love. And yes, they may think for a time that the person they are dating is absolutely perfect. 

Yet over time the rose-colored lenses will fade or break, and once adorable quirks will become current frustrating habits. The imperfect nature of every one of us will become obvious to our significant other (wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever it may be) after a time. 

For some it may be years. 

For others, mere months.

But love is a funny thing. Everyone experiences it differently, and one person's love battles may be another person's victories. Let me share what I do and don't believe about love.

I don't believe that there is just one perfect person out in the world for all of us. 

I don't believe that they will always be exactly what you need, when you need it.

I don't believe in spontaneous storybook endings where perfection just exists.

I don't believe that pure happiness will always thrive in every minute.

But.

 I believe in falling in love. 

I believe in happily ever afters that can be as beautiful as the fairy tales painted them to be.

I believe in giving your whole heart to a person, and trusting them not to break it beyond mending. 

I believe in recognizing the joy in your life because of them.

I believe in the true, deep love that forms slowly over the years.

I believe in true friendship being the rock of the relationship.

I believe that, with a little effort and love from both people, the relationship can be beautiful. Thriving. Happy. Fulfilling. Rewarding.

I believe in marriage.

I also believe that I have the best husband ever. I realize that he is not perfect, and neither am I. 

I will most likely never be good enough at basketball to keep up with him on the court, but I can go to his games and support him. I will most likely never be able to understand exactly what it is about cars that fascinate him, but I can do my best to listen intently to him and find something about them that I am interested in. I will most likely never be able to accept the fact that he can be quiet and happy at the same time. But I can try to understand and hold myself back from pestering him, trying to get him to confess to some irritation or sadness that is causing his silence.

He will most likely never enjoy playing volleyball. But he has still joined in, multiple times, because he knew it was important to me. He will most likely never be the storybook romantic that melts my heart, but he is one of the sweetest guys I know, and the small gestures that he does or says mean the world to me. He will most likely never understand the compulsive need that I have to share with him every single thought that occurs to me, but he patiently listens. And more importantly, he remembers. 

On paper, we are not "perfect for each other." But when we are together, everything is right. Not perfect; just right. I feel like this quote sums up a lot of what I am feebly and awkwardly trying to express in this post.

Most idealists like to say that love is perfect. I have to disagree. Love is not perfect. It is frustrating, perplexing, and complicated. But as long as you are loving with your whole heart, with everything that you have, then what is meant to happen will.

I feel as if this post makes me seem cynical when it comes to love. Trust me, I am not. When you call someone a romantic, that applies to me through and through. However, I cherish the reality of love. 

I love it.

I love the frustrations, the perplexities, and the complications. 

I love my husband. We are not perfect. But we love each other with everything that we have, and that is how we will develop the true, deep love that you can see in the elderly couples holding hands in the grocery store. 

That is how we continually fall in love with one another. 

That is how we will hold on to our happily ever after.