A Bottle by the Fire and a Nod to Lessons Learned.

This week I passed the 14 year mark as a member of writing.com. The email hit my inbox along with the expected reminders to update my blog...something I have been hard pressed to do much over the last two months. I could blame it on the lack of time and discipline, the usual suspects, but the truth is my mind feels cloudy - it feels difficult for me to focus. I feel limited with being able to express myself lately, and seem to oscillate between a kind of manic contentment and a crouching darkness that makes me feel heavy and hopeless at times. I know that not writing, not attempting to write, is depriving myself of something key and I feel the absence of it acutely at times. I need to press myself into those familiar spaces again, force the words. My heart needs the outlet, my soul needs the confessional, my life needs the anchor.

"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
DAY 1519 Prompt: February 13, 2018
Prompt: Do you think people can change as to how they view love as years go by? And how do you think they perceive love and romance in different stages of their lives?

We have all seen them, that sweet elderly couple walking hand in hand or sitting together on a park bench. They are the standard of measurement for a lifetime of love. I marvel at couples who celebrate those milestone anniversaries; 50,60, 70 years together. Ask any one of them and I'm sure they've stories to tell, stories that might sound like fables where the messages are about patience and forgiveness. To make a life with someone that spans decades, there must be forgiveness and acceptance as much as love and devotion.

The rush of falling in love is a temporary condition. The euphoria of a budding, passionate romance always gives way to life eventually. Couples marry, have children...the pace of life changes and it gets harder to manage the expectations of another amid the beautiful mess of raising a family. The definition of romance changes over time I think. It is forced to become something else...trails of rose petals and long Sunday morning trysts yield to more practical measures like being able to take a hot bath why your spouse keeps the kids from banging on the bathroom door looking for snacks. My husband is fond of saying, "that's just life" when I complain about lack of "us time" or when we go consecutive nights with a child between us in bed and dogs layered at our feet. We are not the same individuals who once kissed in a rainstorm or spent intimate weekends in romantic inns. Sometimes though, I get our daughter to bed early and go downstairs to find the fire still roaring and the room lit by glowing candles. Love and romance move through time with us, they morph and change as we manage life the best we can I think. Sometimes sharing a waning winter evening and a bottle of Cabernet with the one we love is all the romance we need.

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DAY 1916 February 13, 2018
Write about three people from whom you've learned the most.

I've been fortunate to have had people in my life who have taught me many things, lessons that were good and bad. It is a difficult question because overwhelmingly I have learned the most about myself from people who have hurt and disappointed me the most in life. I have learned from past lovers that some men are forever damaged in ways that can not be fixed, damage that can coat you like a toxin. No one comes to save you, you have to save yourself. You have to choose yourself. In those terrible moments, you can discover a faith you didn't know you had and a strength you did not know you possessed. I have learned the most about myself from being forced into corners, from the hollow sound of my heels in hospital corridors and the fear of knowing a man who claims to love you can still put you in the ground.

I am blessed to know a different man now, a husband that cherishes and champions me. He is a man who makes promises and keeps them, a man who magnifies all those special, little moments in life that once eluded me. He has taught me that men can be passionate without all the darkness and the violence. Through him, I have learned that men can live and love without the chains of addiction and rage binding them to their demons. Most of all, my husband has taught me that hope lives inside even the very wounded and that with consistency, with commitment and the smallest, simplest loving gestures, it can grow and become the foundation of a life worth living.