Love and thriving

So, after Joy School today we moms got started on a conversation about love. First we were talking about the Twilight books, the love story in which we all felt was completely and utterly unbelievable. Personally, I feel like it's just so DRIPPING throughout the entire thing and so very transcendent and self-sacrificing and bigger-than-the-universe that it completely loses the charm that many love stories hold. There's no subtlety or delicacy to it at all to lend it sweetness, and there's just nothing that strikes a chord of real-life love. (And I haven't finished the last one quite yet, but so far I keep being able to relate to the characters as well as the love story less and less.) (As a side note, I suppose you could compare the love in the Twilight books to the love in Wuthering Heights (which book I do love) except that in that one at least the characters know they're wicked and selfish--it balances it out.) (P.S. I'm such a moron that I stayed up until 3:00 last night reading Breaking Dawn--I will say one thing for those books, they keep you turning the pages! I got up at midnight to feed Talmage and decided to read JUST while I nursed him, and then three hours later... What a retard-I will never get those three hours back!!! And for a book I don't even like--pitiful!)

Anyway, enough about the Twilight books--that led to Amanda saying that for an on-line class she's in she was supposed to interview people and ask them what they think being in love feels like (that may not be it precisely, but it's the idea). And she said how most people in the class are younger than her, and are not married yet or have only recently gotten married, and that their definitions of being in love were quite different than hers and the people she had interviewed, who had been married for much longer.

So I was thinking about how I would answer the question now. Because of course, the first thing I asked her when she said 'What do you think being in love feels like (or is)' I said, "How long have you been in love?" The first loopy "in-love" stage is of course different than later love. It's wonderful and beautiful and magical and I think, easier to define and see --which is why it is the kind so often featured in movies and books and songs. But the lasting, wholly committed, ever-strong, less-dramatic, more-tolerating love is actually really magical too, and maybe even more compelling when you look at it hard. (For really great books with this kind of love in them read 'A Lantern in her Hand' by Bess Streeter Aldrich, or 'One Time I Saw Morning Come Home' by Clair Huffaker.)

So. My answer. What does being in love feel like now. It makes you feel blessed--lucky. It feels like a surety. It's feeling like 'we' instead of 'me.' It feels completely comfortable and content and easy and often beyond-description-ENORMOUSLY WONDERFUL. But sometimes it's being REALLY irritated or mad yet still knowing in another portion of your brain that you really love this person more than anyone, and that it will be okay tomorrow and not worrying or wondering if this will ruin anything-because it won't. It is knowing that this person means more to you than pretty much anything, but not really thinking about that too often. Like your arm--you're sure glad you have it and would be absolutely devastated if you lost it, but you don't go around all day thinking, "oh, you're such a wonderful arm!!!"

So. What do you think being in love feels like? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? (Do you think that's the most quoted line from a movie ever? Probably not, but probably comes out high on the charts.)

On to another topic. The other day I was blogsurfing and read a post by someone who talked about the mantra 'Thrive--don't just survive." And I thought how I'm kindof in a stage right now where I'm not really doing my best to thrive. I'm kindof on the wavelength of, Brett will finish school soon and we'll be out of here and onto the next stage of life with a real job and a real house and a real life. Of course, I don't actually know when that will be--Brett keeps thinking we'll get going in January, and I'm more pessimistic and think it will be later, but if I just KNEW when, I could get in that mindset. If I just KNEW where we would get a job it would settle my mind, etc. So I think I'm letting my present place/stage get overlooked a bit. I need to thrive! My kids will never be this age again. I have a lot of good friends here, there are lots of things I need to be more thankful for right here and now.

Even more immediate is my feeling a little sorry for myself that Brett's not home during the week basically at all anymore. And usually not on Saturday either. I feel pretty picked on most nights that I have to take care of four kids all by myself. But sure, although it's not the greatest situation, he's working to help earn money for our family and to help out a friend and I know that I could have a better attitude. I could thrive and make our evenings more pleasant but it would take a concerted effort on my part. I don't know if I'm ready to do that. I think I like my bit of wallowing.

So. I really rambled. I wonder if I will feel embarrassed that I wrote all this tomorrow. Hmmm, only time will tell.

P.S. In case you were wondering, I did not take the picture of the elephants making a heart. ;)