First Comes Marriage (Completed & Editing)

Love Was Made For Me And You

After Mel’s story, I was fuming. But it was not out of anger, it was out of frustration. Mel doesn’t totally understand it, but when I get too frustrated to think straight, I check my pulse. It makes me focus, reminds me that I am still alive and that there are still things that I can control, like my heartbeat. After slowing it down to a reasonable rate, my clouded brain starts to clear. It is my own personal therapy session, and it is free.

How do you know when you are in love? That was a question that I have never been able to find the answer to. Is it a feeling? Is it just sudden knowledge? Well, I still do not have the answer. However, somehow I know that I am in love. Is that possible?

When I saw Mel for the first time, I knew that I was physically attracted to her. Somewhere along the way, those feelings changed into something else, something different. While I don’t know how to describe love, I know that I am in it. It wasn't a sudden thing, it was gradual. But then one day, I looked at Mel and the only thing that I could think was, "I am in love with that girl."

"Doc, have you ever been in love?"

 With a small, almost sad, nod of his head he replied, "Yes. I have been in love. Why do you ask?"

Putting my reasoning in to words was suddenly becoming difficult. I knew what I wanted to say, but my tongue and brain seemed to be acting on two different frequencies. "It's just...well...I can't describe it or explain it and well, how do you prove that you are in love with someone if you can't describe the feeling?"

The suddenly wide-eyed therapist was trying to strings words together, but seemingly failed each time. I guess he can't describe it either. Can anyone describe love?

"Jake, I don't think that love is something that you can really describe. I mean if you could, people would stop writing love songs. The reason that people keep writing those songs is because they are trying to describe this feeling that is indescribable." The therapist’s point seemed like it should make sense, and yet, it didn’t.

Love songs were one of those things that I have never seemed to understand. It always feels like they are describing something that was so cheesy and predictable.

I love you like a love song baby...what does that even mean? Does it mean that you love them like you love a song? Or is it that you love them the way a song describes love?

Love is being the owner of the company that makes rape whistles and, even though you started the company with good intentions trying to reduce the rate of rape, now you don't wanna reduce it at all cause if the rape rate declines you'll see in equal decline in whistle sales. Without rapists whose gonna buy you whistles? Love is all about whistles...that one just disturbs me. I don't even know how to comment on that one or how it appeared in my head. Maybe it is a good thing that I am in therapy.

L is for the way you look at me. O is for the only one I see. V is very, very extraordinary. E is even more than anyone that you adore…I guess that all of those things are true, but they also seem like what everyone seems to think love should be. Is it wrong that I don’t love Mel because of the way she looks at me? Then again, I can’t really expect a song to explain our relationship because our relationship isn’t typical. It never has been and it never will be.

"I knew from the beginning of our relationship that Mel did not want to get married. It wasn't in 'her plan'. But, after I realized that I was in love with her, I knew that I had to find a way to spend the rest of my life with her."

Marriage was always something that I planned as a part of my future. I didn't see myself without a wife and kids. That was what I wanted. But what if the person you want to spend the rest of your life with doesn't see it the same way? Do you try to change them? Do you let them change you?