I Know Something About Love

In the book I'm listening to on the way back and forth to work, there's a scene with a grown woman talking to a 10-year-old boy, in which the boys says, "I know about love" and the woman responds, "You don't know anything about love. You're only 10." My immediate response was that I would have asked, "What have you learned about love?"

I know a lot about being without love. I learned to live without it, and I think it makes me more appreciative that I have it now. I read an article that was a commentary on Ben Affleck's Oscar comment that marriage takes work. I do agree with him. I think love is a choice you make every day, and fortunately for me, Joe makes it easy to choose love. We've only been together for a couple years, but we've been through something that has torn other couples apart. It takes work, especially for someone who has been in the habit of hiding her feelings, but we do it. A small part of me is thankful that we have this extra time together to continue getting to know each other, how to relate to each other, before we add to our family.
But the other part of me needs to take the next step. It feels a lot like how it was before I met Joe: there was a hole in my life where he was supposed to be, and I struggled to fill it. I tried a lot of things, and most of those things were good for me and filled the space for a while. When he came into my life, I knew almost immediately he was what I was missing, and that's why we were engaged four months after we met. If I hadn't lived so long with the hole, I might not have known and I might not be as grateful for what we have now.

Now there's another hole I'm ready to fill, and most of the time it seems like I am in a holding pattern, trying to fill it with something until the right piece finally comes. I have a wonderful life and the last thing I want is to be ungrateful, so I guess what I want most is to be able to be content with the present until it changes.