What is love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more.*

I hate to beat a dead horse, and maybe this is why I had separate blogs before, but I’m going to do it again, I’m going to go the route of relationships. I’m a bit self critical of the fact that I can’t seem to “let it go” as far as trying to figure out how to make a relationship work – but I guess rationally I can’t give up on that because

1. I’m not in a relationship and

2. When I am in a relationship I’ll still need to know how to make it work

Lately I feel I have been preoccupied with the idea of marriage, not my own necessarily. Marriage is something that I think I want but at the same time, I’m desperately frightened of. Age settles things within you, like “snow” in a snow globe (like sand through the hour glass?*). In your youth the snow globe is constantly being shaken, and it’s fun and exciting that way, to have things constantly shaken. But as you get older, you want to put the snow globe on the shelf for “decoration only” and things begin to settle. Things get comfortable and pretty soon you don’t want it to be shaken...ever again. I’ve gotten comfortable with my own way of doing things – I’ve gotten comfortable with my relative freedom to do as I choose, go where I please, and make impulse purchases (like cars and cameras). The thought that someone could come along and shake things up again is scary.

The only thing that tops that fear is picturing me thirty years down the road surrounded by numerous, albeit large and friendly cats. I think that is the thought that worries me most– alone with cats - no one to talk to and to grow with.

I look at married couples and I don’t know how they did it. I find myself wondering how they knew that they wanted to marry the person they married. What qualities did they look for? Did they have any doubts? Fears? How did they manage to find the person they wanted to spend the rest of their life with…and how did they convince that person they wanted to do the same? I know that I wasn’t supposed to get married at a young age like others I know – I have felt myself grow so much not only from the time I was nineteen, but even in the last few months and years. I seem to grow best when I am alone and it makes me wonder if I can grow with someone. Experience tells me ‘no’ but hope is holding its breath for ‘yes’. Because, believe it or not, I don’t want to be that 60-year-old lady coming home to 7 cats named after punctuation marks.

So I am going to try something out. It could end as a banal curiosity into how this crazy thing called love works – because it could be my design to be single for the rest of my life (or at least the next 30 years). Either way, it is something I am interested in. So I am going to present at least five couples and “their story”. It will be a “Date Night” post, each Friday in the month of August. I will introduce you to four five couples (maybe more if people I like it. Just to see how love is found and how it is kept.  Plus - it does my heart good to read about real people who have made it work.

So I hope you enjoyed the "series".  I look forward to introducing you to five couples that I admire and respect and who, whether they know it or not, set a good example for me.

My coworker bought this for me last week - sweetest thing!