Put on His love

Back in September, I was 9 days away from finishing the Love Dare.  In my final post I wrote 10 things that I had learned over the study.

I have listed them below:

1. I've always known how difficult relationships can be but when people really believe that they can work they do.
2. I've noticed that dysfunctional relationships are the norm and that healthy relationships are hard to come by.
3. I've found that even though I talk a big game I know nothing about relationships.  If I did I might not have so much knowledge about them.
4. I've discovered that relationships are more then just 50/50, they're about giving your all, all the time.
5. I've learned  that you must make each other a priority and not just an option.
6. I've realized that sometimes the best thing that you can do for your significant other is to just be present in the moment.
7. I've known that sometimes we must get outside our comfort zones to better relate to our partners, but now I see that it is a requirement.
8. I've figured out that the only way to a healthy relationship is to start with a healthy you.
9. I've wised up to the fact that just because you've witnessed dysfunction in the past, you are still worthy of functionality.
10. I've determined that your past has nothing to do with your future. 

If you would have asked me this past winter if I thought I would even venture into another relationship again I would have said no but an unlikely story started to unfold in April of this year. 

I spent Valentine's Day sad and heart-broken but as March approached my whole outlook on life began to change. I started school and started attending Life again in the beginning of April.  I decided that I had enough time to mourn and I needed to start looking forward because I wasn't going anywhere while looking backwards, but I never expected to end up where I am now. 

I am  a hopeless romantic so of course I love the movie Serendipity.  The movie is about two people who meet by chance one winter's night but due to other circumstances they part ways never to meet again.  In the movie the female character writes her number down in a book with the premise that if he ever finds the book again, they were meant to be together.  Years pass, they are both engaged to marry other people and because of cold feet he starts his search for the girl again.  I won't give it away but the ending is every hopeless romantic's dream. 

I met someone by chance in 2004 and there was an instant connection.  I didn't know it at the time but there was a connection on both sides.  Everybody around us was suspicious of our status, yet we remained just friends until that fateful day in the Fall of 2007 when life took me in another direction.

There are some people that you just click with.  Friends that no matter the distance or time, when you see each other again its like you were never gone.  You can talk about or do nothing at all when you are with them and yet you still will have had one of the best nights of your life. People that care enough to help you unpack your hurts, even if its one piece at a time.  People that see you for who you are, yet accept you unconditionally. Those kind of people are kept in a special place in your heart.           

I didn't go looking for him.  I figured he was married with a bunch of kids, but when I saw him from across the parking lot I knew I had to reach out to him.  I really just wanted to apologize to him for leaving abruptly and without an explanation, but what started as a dinner to explain myself ended as the beginning of a journey into a new chapter of my life.

Those 10 points I mentioned all those months ago, I already knew but until now I hadn't had the opportunity to see if they actually meant something.  I don't want to point fingers or say who was right and who was wrong but relationships are between two people and when one or both are not putting on love for each other then the relationship is going to end in heartbreak.

Relationships are hard work.  Choices must be made everyday to choose love over anger or frustration or even hate.  Decisions about priorities are a daily battle.  Life gets in the way.  Work gets in the way.  Technology gets in the way.  Children and other people get in the way.  Its a daily battle to chose each other over the other interruptions in our lives. 

Good flourishing relationships are possible. With dysfunction all around us, it is possible to be content with one person for the rest of your life, but its a choice.

I've made a choice to finish the Love Dare, because I do know something about relationships and I was to continue to learn all I can about how to make them better.