I am currently working on a blog post about a very interesting occurrence in which my handsome knight in shining armor saved me from the big bad frat boy on the metro, but I really want that one to be well developed and written so it is going through a few drafts (are you proud, LJ?)
I was just thinking about a little known piece of advice about being in a relationship that I learned from my mom and dad. I am so blessed to have been brought up in an "against the odds" family. My parents were 20 years old when they married each other. Neither of them were old enough to buy any alcohol for their wedding, so there wasn't any (much in contrast to my own upcoming nuptials where alcohol will flow freely from any cup that is not right side up). My parents are still just as in love today as I feel like they probably were when they started dating at 15. (Side note: my Grandma and all of my aunts and obviously my mom, married the man that they dated in high school. I was running out of hope when I hadn't dated anyone by my senior year and then met William in March of my senior year. Just under the wire. HA.) I am not saying by any means that I think my parents had it easy because they were so in love. Simply examining my own devious childhood, raising me might have been enough to drive anyone insane. I don't think I developed a conscience until I was like 12 or something.
One little thing that I learned from them, something very practical, I try to do for William as often as I think to do it. Honestly, it is just as good for my heart as I think it is for his. My parents had this adorable/annoying habit of writing each other love notes on our bathroom mirror in soap. Obviously, this was adorable for a bevy of reasons, even more apparently this was annoying because I had to maneuver around their sap to be able to see in the mirror to fix my hair properly. My dad would also write "I love you" in the frost on my moms windows on her car in the morning. My mom always writes their initials in the sand on the beach. As lame as this sounds, nay it doesn't just sound lame, it is lame, my mom and dad both take to Facebook to make their statuses about how much they love each other. I am pretty sure that before I got a hold of them (remember the whole no conscience thing) my mom had kept every love letter my dad had ever written her in high school.
What I am getting at is my parents LOVE to write love notes to each other. It is like their bread and butter. There is something so final and permanent and timeless about writing down what you think, how you feel, what you mean and showing it to another person. My mom also keeps a journal, she is on probably her 567765 volume, and only certain people can read it, because when you share what you have written, it is such an intimate thing. That is why I believe it is so important to write love notes. They are a vessel of affection that requires no money, no physicality, not even much talent. It just requires time, thought and honesty, which are three things that are often so hard to come by. I love to write William love notes. I can write down things that I often cannot say because I either a)get sidetracked b)try too hard to explain what I mean or c) can't think that quickly on my feet. Writing for me is often like praying, which is also a lot like thinking. I can organize things. God can do a lot of work on me when I can give him a little organization to work with. I can tell William in a love note, in such a clear way how much I love him. It's not rambling, like it often is when I talk. And he can go back and look at it any time he needs to. It doesn't have to be long. Not to brag or anything, but he has kind of an old one packed away that I left on his car that just says, "I believe in you and me." Now I am not saying that if you are blessed with the gift of gab that you should force yourself to write out your feelings, I am just saying it is such a clear and lasting method of communication, that it has the potential to work wonders in any relationship.
In summation, my advice is, write love letters. To everyone. That's all.
