Person

There is this person.

I don’t know much about them, other than they exist. And I love them.

That seems ripe for a metaphor. Like I should start talking about how it shouldn’t take much more than knowledge of existence for us to illicit compassion.  How we shouldn’t make a refugee on wartorn shores prove their worth, or ask a child to demonstrate the economic profitability of providing them with clean air.

But I’m too tired for all that right now.

Besides, love at this point is only theoretical. Don’t get me wrong, it’s real. I know it’s real, or at least will be real. But think back to how you look at your wedding day. Doesn’t part of you wonder how you even got married to someone you knew so little? Somebody whom you hadn’t yet walked through the trials and blessings you’ve been through since?

Or your baby’s first smile. It was wonderful, sure. But it has since been eclipsed by grins, guffaws, and kisses. How little you knew then.

Love is difficult, is it not? It is raw, involuntary, and demanding. It is an action we must choose, time and again, often before ourselves. It breaks us and leaves us more whole than we have ever been before.

So, sure. I know I’m in love. And I know the first days, weeks of love pale into comparison to the gritty work of what comes later. Life often gets harder and better on equal measure.

So here’s to the next love of our life, whom you are welcome to join us in loving sometime this October.