About Love...

Lately, more than any other time in my life so far, I find myself thinking about love. I have always believed that love was a simple thing. You find someone, you fall in love and you're happy together.
Until you're not...

Maybe it's that I never really thought about love. I mean really thought about it. Why should it be so simple? Love is complicated. Complex. Painful. And just because you love someone, doesn't mean that  person is going to love you. And even if they do love you, it might not be what you had in mind.

I had never realized that love is not the same for everyone. I always had it in the back of my mind that love, the way I understand it, was universal. Love is the same wants, needs, and desires in everyone. Except it's not...

Everyone is profoundly different. We all see things and situations differently. We react differently.
It's an odd revelation to find out you know very little about someone you have known for 13 years.
To believe you have an intimate understanding of an other human being.
Except you don't...

Everyday I see this person that I've been calling Precious, believing her to be a part of my very being. Closer to me than any other person has ever been. Then one day there is this large distance between the two. What was so simple, for me, had become complicated. The simplicity was gone. The ease at which we interacted had been disturbed. The part of me in which she possessed had been taken. Two people that had been together for so long were suddenly strangers with a common bond.

Everything became awkward. Communications and interactions were misunderstood and misinterpreted. Now I feel on edge in my own home. Like a visitor. Not sure how to act or behave. Questioning my role as partner and father. Not sure where to stand or what to say or when to be involved. At times it's like I'm living with a single mother and her child. I'm just there to help when I can with extra money and chores.
Like live in help...

Love is simple when it's new. It's easy. Natural. But like  most every thing else in life, love becomes more complex with time. Like wine. The older it gets, the better it is. Until it goes too far, and then it's vinegar.

Not everyone loves the same way. Love is not constant but changes over time. It grows, evolves, and like every thing else, it dies.