Love is a choice

I was having dinner last week with a few individuals that I didn’t know very well, I had just met them a few days earlier. I forget how we got on the topic of love and husbands/wives, etc. I got a bit frustrated (and still do) with this whole “falling in love” concept. I know I know, you might think I’m this romantic person. But I just believe to my core that love is a choice (weird looks that I get and all). I cannot chance my relationship with my husband and the family we have built, the amazing babies that we have made who get to see both Mommy and Daddy almost everyday, I cannot risk this to an emotional roller coaster of “falling in” or “falling out” of something as important as love. I’ll admit that I typically keep all opinions to myself when I don’t know people as well. I broke my own rule and got some extremely strange and weird looks from all around the table.

Is it just my control freak nature? Maybe. I can admit to that. But I have seen too many people, experienced it myself when I was younger and even early on in our marriage that will say, “We’ve just grown apart.” Which I believe is code for a plethora of other excuses/issues that have developed over a period of time.

I didn’t always work at my marriage. I didn’t know I was supposed to. I thought I had fallen in love, we got married, life would just continue on this golden, diamond and chocolate covered road. Life would be good. I just had to keep on living my life the way I always had, the way I wanted to.

Raymonn and I both realized one day how unhappy we were. Extremely unhappy. Neither of us were working on our marriage. Neither of us were making a CHOICE to love each other everyday. We left it to happenstance. We assumed we had said “I do” and therefore the hard work was done. Okay, maybe not quite that naive, but looking back it seemed close.

In the wake of yet another Hollywood breakup of individuals who just “grew apart” and me being the annoying individual that continually thinks back on past conversations I’ve had and things I’ve said, responses I got, things I’d do/say differently the next time (am I the only one who does this by the way?) – I still stand behind my words, maybe not the timing or the audience, but nevertheless I stand behind my beliefs.

Love is a choice. It’s a choice I make everyday. It’s a choice that when you don’t like someone that day b/c of whatever reason, love is the foundation, love is what overrides that one particular day, love is what reminds me not to dwell on whatever little thing that drives me nuts (hopefully reminds R of the same about all of my idiosyncrasies – ha!). I CHOOSE love. The more I choose it, the more natural it becomes and is not constantly on the forefront of my mind, but I still choose it.

I refuse to leave something that is of the utmost importance up to something that is out of my control, something that can change and become eroded even slowly, almost imperceptibly – instead I make it a priority, pay attention to it, and make sure it is one of my greatest successes and hopefully it gets woven into the legacy I will someday leave behind.

So, this thing called love? It’s a choice. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.