What about the (much debated) “language” of love? And what to do when feelings of love and actions of humans don’t match? Loving someone can be easy, yes? Getting along through life with them can be tough. Is love ever wrong? Unhealthy? sure. but wrong? I don’t know.

We all yearn to be loved. We all delight in seeing someone’s eyes light up at our entrance. We all like knowing that someone has sought our attention, cares what we think, and has our back. I think we each have a desire to be known, and accepted. As a dear friend once stated, “I’m thankful for friends who know my shit and love me anyway”. I think it’s even deeper than that. It’s letting someone know your deepest thoughts and desires, wishes and dreams, weaknesses and failures. The love comes when the other person cherishes that information. The love comes when that person shares all of that with you. The love comes when you respect each other through it all. I think what kills love is when people stop respecting the information. When the people we’ve opening up to stomp all over our hearts or act like it didn’t mean anything after all.

A few decades ago as a teenager I had already come to a place where I decided I was done. Done. My heart had been broken, falling in love never ended happily ever after and I was done. Pretty jaded for a teen, but maybe that’s what the angst is all about. During this time I came across a book, I still have it. The title is, “The Next Time I Fall In Love”. It has graphs and insight on how we need to share on all levels equally in order to move forward healthfully in relationships. Basically the emotional sharing needs to happen before physical interactions, and the communication needs to continue at the same level of the “lovin’ touchin’ squeezin’ ” or else feelings get out of balance, people feel used, or possibly there is no foundation to build your relationship. This was fabulous information, and thus I kept the book to pass along the great wisdom to others.

Enter Jeremy Davis. A young man in search of relationship advice. Why he sought me out I will never know. But that’s how our story started. He found me during my time of relationship reflection, my time “off”. He was trying to make things work with another girl and wanted advice. And so I gave him all the advice I had at that time. As it turns out it was a whole train-ride’s worth. We followed it up with many long phone calls and a few heartfelt notes. For the record he didn’t follow my advice. He got his heart broken and I helped him put it back together. The rest is 23 years of history. We have history, we have depth, we have great love and respect.

After we had our daughter, Jeremy came up with a parenting goal for us, for her. Our goal is to love her in such a way that she learns how to give and receive love in healthy ways. If we can do that we will have given her a great gift.

Jeremy also said, “It’s not who you love, but that you love”. You heard it here first!

It can hurt to love and not have the feeling returned. It can hurt to love and not be respected. It can hurt to have loved and lose it all. Once you have picked up the pieces, dusted yourself off and continued down your path, don’t forget to love. Don’t give it away, or sell it cheaply. It is a treasure, treat it as such.

I finished up She’s Come Undone recently at the gym between classes. This quote is at the very end of the book and it had me both laughing out loud and thinking at the same time.

“…I just don’t believe in happily-ever-after”

“I ain’t offering you happily-ever-after. I’m offering you…happily-maybe-sometimes-ever-after. Sort of. You know, with warts…”

Isn’t this so true?! Isn’t this all any of us really have to offer? When we get married we think we can offer the other person perfection (and thus receive it back in return) and yet in reality all we have to offer is ourselves, “You know, with warts”. It doesn’t sound nearly as romantic “happily-maybe-sometimes-ever-after” but isn’t it much more realistic? This isn’t what young girls dream about, but maybe they should because it’s true.

Happy Anniversary to us, warts and all.

When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull up a Chair by Geneen Roth : I found this author in Good Housekeeping magazine. She is a regular columnist for them now. My plan is to read more of her books as they become available at the library. Many of her insights were eye-opening, light bulb type moments for me. I found myself wondering how she knew exactly what I was thinking.

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson: This book came up at Amazon under one of those “if you liked this, you may like this”. It was very entertaining both about his travels and adventures and also very insightful as to the way people in the areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan live. I feel like a more informed person having read the book.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert: The author was on Oprah and I realized while watching the show that apparently I was one of the only people left on the planet who hadn’t read this book. Since then I’ve discovered that I’m not. I gave the book to several of my friends for Christmas and I currently have my copy out on loan. Ms. Gilbert has a very entertaining style of writing. It’s cliche to say “I laughed, I cried”, but really, I did!

She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb: My mother-in-law left this book here after her last visit. She said that it was very good and that I would enjoy it. She was right! It took me a probably a third of the way into it to really get into it, but it’s an enjoyable story. I didn’t find it as funny as one of the critics from People magazine (quoted on the back cover) but I also would recommend it to others.

Plum Lucky by Janet Evanovich: Pure brain candy!!! One of my dear sweet friends is to blame for getting me hooked on this series last year. I’m eagerly anticipating #14 in the series, however this “between the numbers” book was released first. The between the numbers books are glorified short stories in my opinion. Good none-the-less, but almost not worth publishing into a real book. It was enough to tie me over until the next “real” release. One of these days I truly hope Ms. Evanovich is given an offer she can’t refuse to bring these fantastic characters to screen, big or little, it would be a treat for us all.

Next in the pile:

• The Pilot’s Wife
• a few of Sheldon Siegel’s books
• whatever I can get by Geneen Roth from the library