Explaining Love

You can’t draw a picture of love. You can draw things and people that you do love. You can draw moments of love. You can take photographs of people in love. But you can’t ever illustrate love. It’s too many small things to make one simple picture.

It’s the way she smiles at me first thing in the morning and the way she sends me messages when I’m at work just so I know she’s thinking of me. It’s the way she’ll make sure dinner’s ready when I get home from work no matter how tired she is… It’s the way she knows what I’m thinking before I’ve even finished thinking it, knows what I’m going to say before I’ve even said it and knows how I’m feeling without me having to put it into a series of meaningless adjectives. It’s the way she accepts me without a list of changes and compromises I have to make. It’s the way she kisses me, lays her head on my chest.

It’s the silent ecstasy that lingers in the air as we sit in the quiet just looking at one another. It’s the smiles that happen, without words or instigation, between us for seemingly no reason other than the world reminding us how lucky we are. It’s the way she tiptoes quietly around my mind during the day, no matter how busy I am or what I am doing. It’s the quiet nights in, it’s the books we read together and the poems we recite when the children are asleep.

It’s the way we work together as parents, the way we bounce off one another as friends and the way we’re there for our families – together. It’s the way she can make the worst day slightly better with a kiss or a passing comment.

It’s the way that she doesn’t expect perfection, nor do I. We simply expect honesty and one another. It’s the way she sees my imperfections not as flaws but as ‘character.’ It’s in the way she’ll write messages on napkins and leave them in my coat pocket or laptop bag. It’s in the way we function better together, in the way our imperfections complement one another just as well as our positive character traits do.

It’s in the way that we’re just better for one another. It’s in the way I want so badly to become a better husband every single day and better still again the next day just to even have a half chance at deserving her.

It’s in the way that everything is just better when we’re together.

You can’t draw that, take pictures of it or even fully explain it. It’s a bizarre thing, love… I'm not arrogant enough to think I’m the only person who’s ever experienced it. So, so many of us do experience it… yet it remains so difficult to explain.

So I won’t try anymore… I’ll simply enjoy it, embrace it and be grateful for it, for her… for my stunning wife, soul mate, best friend and the only person who’s ever really completely known me and loved me…