Good Friday Morning Dustin. 

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I always smile when I hear the expression "all you need is love" because I know what is involved with loving another person.
If loving someone includes commitment, dedication, forgiveness, selflessness, etc, etc, then I agree with the expression. Humans are by nature selfish, looking out for themselves first. Some, of course, are less selfish than others, but most of us have to work at putting others first. Since we are human, none of us is perfect at it. Sometimes we down right suck at it. But there can be forgiveness for that and every day is a new beginning. It doesn't work, however, when it is only one-sided. One sided love is no love at all.
I generally wake up before Tomas in the morning and I watch him sleep. I look at this beautiful face that I have loved since we were 18 years old and I thank God for this awesome gift he has given me. Even after all these years, my heart starts to beat faster when I think about how much I love him. But because I know how flawed and imperfect I am, without realizing it, I set my heart and mind to loving him better, thinking of him first. He just naturally seems to do those things for me. To me he is perfect, even when he isn't.
There is a kind of love that seems to flow naturally and easily and you often recognize it in the early days of romance. Then there comes a time when you are learning to live together that you also learn to love each other on another level.
Neither of us is good at arguing with the other. Tomas refuses to do it and I tend to go silent, probably because that was how I responded to violence in my home growing up and arguing with someone I love feels violent to me. When we first started living together in college, I remember a time I was upset with him and when we went to bed, I turned my back on him and gave him the cold shoulder. That is a awful thing to do to someone you love. He responded by putting is hand on my back and saying "Danny, I love you". It broke me because I knew my childishness hurt him.
I turned toward him and we reconciled. You really do need to learn to live together and to love someone beyond the romantic love.
There is a tremendous depth to that kind of love that you can never experience until you are willing to go beyond the superficial, self-centered kind of thing. It is that kind of love that is the foundation of a lifetime together.
Sorry for the long post. Something happened just recently that is causing me to be more reflective than usual. I won't interrupt your thread like that again.
And just so you know I am not totally serious and pensive today, I will add this: when I watch my husband sleep, I notice something else, too. His morning wood. Every morning without fail, it's there. On mornings like this where we slept with our bedroom windows open and the air is warm and a little humid, we have only a sheet over us. I like to watch how every 30 or 60 seconds as it flexes in his sleep. I tell ya, Greek boys....




