a letter on love

A co-worker and I were discussing marriage- how you know if you want to get married, and more importantly, how you know who to marry. Love, economics, or a little of both? Can you have your head in the clouds and your creditors on hold? Are romantic comedies the exception, or the expectation? So, it got me thinking.

What would I tell my own daughter about love?

Dear Britton,

Please. Don't be ambivalent about love. When you find it, grab it. Hold love to your heart and experience it without constraint. Love those people you choose to be in your life. Time is too short and life is too precious to waste it on people that do not love you back. Always remember - you are worth the kind of love you want.



New love will set your senses on fire. The sky will be bluer, the flowers smell sweeter, the ocean waves crash louder. Life will feel as though all good things were put on this earth for you. Please don't pick this feeling apart with doubt. It is real, it did happen, you have experienced something you can never explain. And the people who understand don't need the explanation, for it has happened to them as well.



True love, real love, will change. Please don't fear this. Just as the fanciest sports car can't race at maximum power without blowing its engine apart at some point, so the human heart (and mind) can't hold the intensity of new love forever. Love transformed does not mean it is less of love. The gift is in changing together, to become more than you are as individuals without losing who you are as individuals.



So please, please don't be ambivalent about love.