Jami On Love

I planned to write this one several days ago, but due to the vagaries of having both a newborn and toddler, blogging has come under the impossible dream category. Even now, I type with a baby sleeping on me while a 4-year-old peppers me with questions, so if random, seemingly unrelated words sneak in here, please just assume they are answers to the ending queries. But this post is about love. The Husband and I celebrated our 13th anniversary on Tuesday, even though the actual date was Monday. That's right - 13 years married and still having new adventures (you know, like childbirth). Anyway, this coincided with me catching part of the movie Jerry Maguire on late night TV, something I'm catching far more of lately. In the movie, Jerry is explaining how his relationship with his fiancee fell a part. He says something about it being such hard work and Dorothy says "Maybe love shouldn't be such hard work." To which I say, "Bull." Because there are two parts of love really. And as a grammar nerd, I'm going to explain it this way: love is a noun AND a verb. The noun part is the feeling - the warm fuzzy tinglies. All kinds of love have the "heartwarming" emotion part to them - you love your spouse, your kids, your parents, your best friend - it all fills the chest with that happy-contentedness - that's the feeling part of love and it is fairly easy. You don't have to do much with that except enjoy it. Love, though, is also a verb - it's action. You can say "I love you" from here to Timbuktu, but your actions are what make it so. Love isn't just basking in fuzzy happiness, it's being/doing/knowing. Let's take the romantic piece out of it for just a minute, just for example sake. My son Finn is not even a month old. Very easy to love in the noun sense. You just look at his sweet little face and you feel love. But what if, when he cried I just looked at him and said "I love you. Mommy loves you. I love you so much . . ." We both know that's not going to do jack-diddly. Even if I hug him and kiss him and pat his head, it's not going to fill his belly or change wet diapers. Love means the work it takes to feed him, even at 3 in the morning, a time when quite frankly, I usually don't love anyone. Now, apply that to all your relationships. If you love your spouse, you have to do the work, hopefully not to change diapers and feed them, but to nourish their soul. Saying "I love you" is just a part of it - live it. Also, if you live it, you will feel it more. I get disgusted by the people who "just fell out of love" because that means that probably both of them but at very least the one who says that didn't do love, just sat back and waited to feel it. Like exercise, you gotta do it to feel it. It's worth it, because the more you love, the more you can love. And the more you will be loved in return. Thank you the Husband for 13 years of love.