Love and Butterflies

Anyone else out there a Need to Breathe fan? The Gent and I love their Outsiders album. One song in particular has a haunting melody; it's called "Stones Under Rushing Water."

Why don't we dance anymore?
I'm not okay with that
Why don't we laugh anymore?
I'm not okay with that

The years go by like stones under rushing water
We only know, we only know when it's gone
Yeah, the years go by like stones under rushing water
We only know, we only know when it's gone

Why don't we smile anymore?
I'm not okay with that
Why don't we dance slowly?
I'm not okay with that

'Cause the years go by like stones under rushing water
We only know, we only know when it's gone
Yeah, the years go by like stones under rushing water
We only know, we only know when it's gone

Why don't we dance anymore?

Such a sad, sad song. The Gent and I have been married four and a half years, and are about to celebrate the eighth anniversary of our first date (wow!). We sense already how quickly time passes and we consciously make an effort to make sure we spend time alone together, where we can focus for an hour or two on just each other. We love date nights out or just drinking a cup of tea and watching football/baseball/whatever sport is in season and cuddling on the couch. All in all, our marriage is a really great thing. We love being married. There is something awesome in the mundane ins and outs of life when you share it with the person you love.

People told us marriage would be hard and there would be lots of adjustments. But you know what, adjustments are part of life. People are always growing and changing. We'd been dating for three and a half years. The butterflies were gone a long time before we even got engaged. Now don't get me wrong, I loved the butterfly season! But that's just a season, it's not forever. And when you think about it, you really don't want it to be.

"Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feeling come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called "being in love' usually does not last. If the old fairy-tale ending "They lived happily ever after' is taken to mean 'They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married', then it says what probably never was nor ever would be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friend-ships? But, of course, ceasing to be 'in love' need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense - love as distinct from "being in love' - is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be 'in love' with someone else. 'Being in love' first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it." C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

So somewhere towards the end of our first year in our dating relationship, it was bye-bye butterflies and hello love. Though we didn't say that out loud for many, many, many more moons. :) Those butterflies left us with some fabulous memories and we loved that season of life. But we love where we are now so much more. We wouldn't go back. We're too excited to keep walking forward in this grand adventure called marriage.