Love Is....

 ....gosh, it's a million things, isn't it?  

It's lazy Sundays, everyone quietly doing their own thing, but still enjoying being together in the same space.

It's vacation!  Big or small, planned or spontaneous, getting away and enjoying a change of scenery is a treasure.  

It's time apart, testing the old "absence makes the heart grow fonder" adage.  And time apart leads to reunions, equally sweet.

Love is family and friends and friends who are family.  It's sitting quietly with someone who's hurting, praying that you can provide them with exactly what they need in that moment.  It's the weight of the trust you've earned to sit with their pain.

Love is a loud backyard full of kiddos and parents, picking up popsicle sticks and soggy towels after an impromptu pool party.  It's sharing pizza in the garage, trading snacks, books and advice and it's getting super excited when all the kids--not just yours--become proficient bike riders!

Love is fancy dinners at a restaurant or even in the dining room with the good china.  And love is eating a random hodgepodge of leftovers in the family room, on the floor while you watch hockey.

It's fighting and making up, talking and listening.  It's celebrating successes, even ones that aren't yours.  It's the unshakable notion that someone always has your back and the comfort that comes from knowing it's entirely mutual.

Love is crying with someone, laughing with someone, carrying secrets and cherishing truth.  It's taking your car to fill up the tank when you're simply too tired to do it yourself.  Love is filling the tub with warm water and Epsom salts, turning the lights down low and encouraging your daughter to please relax and let her worries melt away.

Love is staying up way too late on a "school night" to watch a movie, grabbing whatever moments you can grab as a couple.  Love is Christmas movies in the "off season" and ice cream in the winter.  It's cranking up the best song and singing and dancing until you're breathless.

It's baking and cooking and sharing the food.  It's a full house, rooms filled with laughter and guests who feel like they're at home.  It's having "a thing" that you only share with that one person; like finding "hidden" hearts or seeing the moon in the daytime.  It's a look that speaks volumes, a song lyric that just fits and love is showing up.

Love is hearing and listening, agreeing and arguing, it's respect, compassion and forgiveness.  Love is grace and joy, and sometimes hurt and sorrow.

Love is past, present and future all swirled together like a kaleidoscope you can't stop spinning.  Love is simple moments and grand gestures, it's loud and it's quiet.  Love takes your breath away and gives you strength immeasurable.

It's sharing goals and dreams and following your own.  It's incredibly common, yet exceptionally rare.  Love is prefect and imperfect, flawed and fabulous.  It's a promise and a privilege.

Valentine's Day may be a Hallmark holiday, may be too cheesy to bear. But if it does nothing but offer a moment to ponder what words come after "Love is..." that, in itself, is a gift as lovely as any chocolate, rose or piece of jewelry.  

xo,
Amy