love and boxes

I am thinking about love.

We've been getting ready to move apartments. That's why it's been like a million years since I've posted. I've been clearing and cleaning and folding and boxing up our lives, and the words inside my head have been waiting to be aired out.

And now it is late, and I am sitting on the couch and our apartment is a mess and I should probably wash the silverware but I don't want to.

I want to think about love.

I like love. I love love. Always have. A good portion of my formative years were spent yearning for romantic connection, memorizing old musicals, dreaming of the day when the stories spun in my head would be for reals.

I think Paul kind of shakes his head at my shameless romanticism. Honestly, I shake my own head at my shameless romanticism. In my defense, I am far more sensible now than I was at fifteen. But I am who I am, and knowing I can frequently be somewhat silly and ridiculous in no way prevents me from being either silly or ridiculous, especially when it comes to love.

And so what I want to say is this:

The love I pictured in my head when I was fifteen is not the same love that I experience now, sitting among empty pizza boxes and odds and ends waiting to be packed.

The love I experience now is sometimes messy. There are disappointments and bad smells and unwashed silverware. Boxes to be packed, work to be done. Hard work.

But there is also Paul scratching my back and Paul smiling because I don't know how to use tools and Paul holding me when I cry and he puts his hand on the back of my neck which feels protective in a nice way.

And all of these things well up inside me and make a feeling unlike any imagined abstract passion, a feeling that is clean and constant and true.

And strong enough to withstand moving apartments.