The Secret to Love

I'm going to tell you a secret. It's a secret about LOVE. And who doesn't want love?!! Don't deny it baby!

What started out as a little suspicion has attached itself to my soul as fact.

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Dare we talk about bad days?

Oh wait, we've already done that way too often this last month!

PS I'm having an awesome day. And I've had a lot of good days in a row.  Phew...I think the little gray cloud has stopped following me!

Anyways, this bad day was years ago. I was driving down the road in my hometown of good ole Fenton, MO. I had the radio blaring in my little beige Mazda Protege and unfortunately it wasn't numbing out my equally loud thoughts about how life was dumb and I was sad and I probably hated my job that day and surely I had no friends and my family was far away and I was hungry and probably fat too and how everything would just be better....if I were married. Everything would just be better if I were married? Really? That would solve all my problems?And even in that exact moment... I knew how absolutely absurd that thought was.

Being married does not equal happiness.

***

Yosh and I had recently moved to California. We were far from family. We had yet to make real good friends. He was at a new job. I was new to my job- a stay-at-home mom. There was a lot of newness going on. And in this transitional discomfort, we quickly became each other's everything- support, social life, therapist, friend, etc. We only had each other. Which is a humbling yet very important feeling for newlyweds to have. It's a bonding agent. But it's not everything.

I remember the first weekend the Yosh Train ditched me for a solo trip. His friends (this would be you Sam and Cami!) were getting married and finances forced me to draw the short straw and stay back with little 5-month-old Dallin B. It would be my first weekend alone.

Now the way I was reluctantly anticipating his departure you would have thought I never spent a weekend alone in the 23 years leading up to meeting him! My little heart palpitations had moments of crack-ingested-type symptoms if you will. I found myself subconsciously daydreaming about the perfect scenario that would make him miss his plane (which ironically almost happened!) I wondered what in the heck I was going to do for a full TWELVE hours alone on Saturday. As if that wasn't my life Monday through Friday. But Saturday??? That was fixin to throw me for a loop.

And to think I'm an independent personality. Mostly.

With no crutches to lean on- no family, no friends, and now no husband- I woke up Saturday morning very aware that I had the whole day ahead of me. I loaded Dallin up in the stroller and the two of us took off aimlessly toward the Boulevard.

The first couple blocks were spent quickly planning an agenda of how to get through the day and night...until Yosh got home the next day. I was simply thinking of filling time. 

I was soon captivated by the energy of Ventura Boulevard. Have you ever been there? There's always people out strolling just to stroll. Leisurely sitting at sidewalk tables drinking their morning coffee. Lots of dog walking- people love their dogs out there. There's the shops. The restaurants.

It's alive. It literally breathes life into me.

And that day was no exception. It took only a snap of a finger to jolt me awake to all the opportunity and aliveness around me. It was then my choice: I could get through, filling time. But that's not my style. That sounds kinda lame. Actually really lame. Or I could choose to experience life. And enjoy. All alone. With the exception of my baby boy.

And I hoped that Yosh was doing the same: enjoying and experiencing and seizing. ALONE.

And intricately woven into that decision was highlighted the secret that I had begun to suspect all those years ago on that ride with just me and the Protege. And now I'm going to share it:

A HAPPY, HEALTHY relationship is comprised of two independently...healthy, happy individuals...working together.

How happy are YOU? How healthy are YOU?

TBC...pronto...because this is only the first part of the secret. I'm going to tell you why it's a risk-free approach to love.

{What's your first thought when you read that: A HAPPY, HEALTHY relationship is comprised of two independently...healthy, happy individuals...working together. Go on ahead and conversate...you know you want to! And I really want you to!}