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Thursday, August 12, 2010

Romance

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken - Shakespeare's Sonnet 116


It's my fourth wedding anniversary today, and I was thinking back to our ceremony.  A friend of mine read Sonnet 116  aloud for us, and it means as much to me now as it did then. DH and I have looked upon a lot of tempests since we started dating back in 2005, and no, I am not about to take you on a guided tour of them, no one wants to do that.

Instead, I wanted to write about romance.  Because although love is steadfast and unshaken, in a long-term couple, romance is the shifting sand.  What I found romantic 4 years ago is not the same, at all, as what I find romantic today.

For example: DH used to romance me by talking to me on the phone till I fell asleep; I used to make him cakes; we used to watch Monty Python in the middle of the night and eat hot dogs and drink chocolate milk.  These things were sweet and wonderful at the time, but our romance shifted like an earthquake when Maeve was born.

Now he romances me by letting me know when he'll be home late, by washing bottles and changing diapers, and by loving my post-baby body as much as he did the former.  I do my best to bring the romance by taking care of myself and exercising, by being affectionate and interested in him even when I'm exhausted or baby-irritable. A baby doesn't just change your life, it radically alters your marriage.

And I mean radically.  We used to talk about our lives while we lay in bed, now we hold hands and try not to wake Maeve.  We used to go out with other couples ... oh yeah, going out, I kinda remember that.  But I'm not griping about the life we lost, truly.  Because now we sit around imagining her next phases, daydreaming about whether she'll say "mama" or "dada" first.  When he changes her diaper and sings her little songs, or just makes faces at her and talks back to her babble, I fall in love all over again.

As Shakespeare wrote in that same sonnet, Love's not time's fool.  And neither are we.

3 comments:

  1. Seeing the two of your together gives me hope that people my age can get married and not only stay married, but stay happy. You have a beautiful family.

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  2. Wow...this warms my heart quite a bit.

    One of the things that I've long believed about love is that it evolves over time. As our lives change and new parts of it are unfolded/introduced, the feelings are always there, even if they must be expressed differently.

    Happy anniversary, you guys! May all three of you enjoy several more!

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