Practicality and Love - The Perfect Pair

When you're young, love is all about the butterflies in your stomach and the flush in your cheeks. It's about lust, and tingles, and desire.  Love is about dreams of the future and a life yet to come and building something together.

Young love is sweet and pure. It is untainted by life's tragedies, and betrayals, it is kind and forgiving. You trust it will endure whatever challenges lay ahead and that it can survive and strengthen over time.

For many, sadly, young love... first love, doesn't last. Only the few are fortunate enough to endure through the ages, but the majority are trial and error. And as we age, so does the love we seek and find.

Love for me is still sweet and thoughtful, but its also about practicality.  I am a logical thinker, so like most things in my life, this decision too must be logical. Warm and fuzzy only gets you so far at our age. Like a bed slipper, it wears out fast in the cold of winter.  It's time to think with our heads, and let our hearts take a break.  They have worked long and hard.

I love Jeff, but gone are the days of my early 20 when I lived for the man in my life and my thoughts and needs took a back seat. Love this time around is a partnership.  Its about give and take.  If there are inequalities in one area they are balanced in another. We are equally responsible to be there for each other emotionally and physically. To help through illness and recovery.  To watch each others dietary needs and exercise. We clean house together, chores are separated by skill. Its more practical for him to clean the bathroom so that I can avoid the extreme retch factor I have developed over the years since my boys out grew diapers.  He does the vacuuming and I do the detail work.  I put things in their place, and dust, and clean, while he does the big ticket heavy duty items.

We both wear clothes so the practical thing to do is to share the job.  He washes and dries. I fold and put away. Its all about big picture and finishing details. 

Kitchen clean up. He's everyday dishes, I'm counters and fine china.

Love is still sweet, like when he takes my shoes off at night for me, or ties them in the morning, or when holds my hand as I take the stairs and gives me his arm as I rise from a booth in the restaurant.  Its still charming and full of comfort when he cuddles up to say goodnight or stands at the door to wave to me each morning as I leave for work.  But it's practical and logical too.

It thinks about social security, life insurance, advance directives, living wills, burial plots and plans.  Love these days isn't afraid to venture to topics and places where young love never thinks to go. It is practical and logical.......it has to be.

If I been more practical and logical all along life would have been very different.  But then again, I wouldn't have experienced the adventures or garnered the wisdom I now claim as my own.  Love comes at different stages and it morphs along the way.  If we are lucky we are with the same person our entire lives as it grows and changes, but if luck is not on our side....we see each stage anew in each relationship we have as we grow and learn.

Chhese and wine, Chocolate and peanut butter, Practicality and Love, Logic and Partnership, Jeff & Lisa - these are perfect pairs.