People think that love looks like bikinis and cold beer~beautiful and young. Shiny and perfect. That's why we so easily shirk it off when it resembles girdles and stubble. crazy and uninspired. slow and uneventful...like a bologna sandwich and a hostess cupcake~ mundane and ordinary. We balk at ordinary. We long for our lives to resemble fun, exciting and drama filled TV shows. You know the ones with all the right lines and dialogue? Where people say everything better than you think them. Where there is a crescendo of emotion in every episode and a lovely well thought out ending that lets us exhale and relax at the end of every day.

The problem with this is love just doesn't look like this. I don't know exactly how it looks every time. But, I do know from my own experience...my own love... that it looks different than, "Private Practice" or "Gray's Anatomy". I know that my love doesn't always allow us to like each other. I know that my love gets boring at times. I know that my love sees all my jagged and harsh pieces and stays. I know that my love has gained weight and watched mine get fuller. I know that my love holds me when I cry and want no one else to see me weak and crumbly. I know that my love sits with me as we try to figure out a schedule for a day that will entertain our family and make us feel like we are doing something memory worthy. I know that my love often feels disjointed when everyone else looks solid and enviable. I know that my love doesn't have sex everyday and when we do, it doesn't always blow my head off and make me scream or say something perfect and sexy. I know that my love sees me naked...stretch marks, fuller thighs and hips, breast with a little more sag...and seems to appreciate all my flaws. I know that my love holds my hands while he's driving and drinking a glass of sweet tea. I know that my love doesn't read my mind and says the wrong thing often. I know that my love tells bad jokes at times, but I have come to find them endearing. I know that when my love and I take a shower together it never looks like, "How Stella Got Her Groove Back", but like two adults fighting for the hot water flow, soapy and cold.

It looks silly, rough, smooth, like a mistake, like a dream, like anger, like frustration, like comfort, like regrets, like an uncharted path, like movie watching on a sofa, like arguing right before church, like telling my deepest fears and knowing that I won't be made fun of, like laughing and farting at the same time, like pants that don't fit, like children we make, like passions we explore, like poems we write, like numbers we crunch, like paintings we think to make, like...a future together no matter what. My love isn't shiny or perfect. My love is flawed and beautiful. It holds my hand when I'm not being pretty and refuses to throw me away when I act like a bad impression of myself.

If love looked like it does in the films...like bikinis and cold beer, I would tire of it and, it would certainly tire of me...quickly