I'm Talking About Love

I have a problem. I talk about my fiancée all the time. At least three conversations per day include a phrase such has "Well, my fiancée was telling me..." or "Elizabeth and I were talking, and..." or "Elizabeth said the other day..." or something similar. I mean, I do talk to her every night, for at least an hour, in addition to multiple texts and sometimes calls throughout the day. It also could be the distance: being 412 miles away from each other, I want to make her a part of my everyday life, and talking about her is just one way to do it.

I think the real culprit, though, is love. I love my fiancée (You say: "Well I'd hope so."), and as we are 151 days away from being joined in holy matrimony, she is becoming an ever increasing part of who I am. So in one sense, I am not talking about her more, but I am compensating for her growing influence in my life.

Now you may be wondering why this is a problem. Well, it kind of isn't. As I already mentioned, I love my fiancée, and highly enjoy talking to and about her. The problem is, because my love for her and the growing importance she has in my life constitutes more talking about her, that there is a noticeable absence of such talk about God.

People who regularly talk to me may notice I engage in theological conversation a fair amount, readily repeating the latest blog or thought from Piper, Driscoll, etc., or how I don't agree with ----'s theology, or ----'s interpretation of the Bible, but how often do you hear me say "Well, God was telling me..." or "I was praying, and..." or "I was reading God's Word the other day and it said..."? What this says to me is that God does not have a growing influence in my life--that I do not love him--at least not to what would be a good degree.

So talking about Elizabeth is not the problem, but not talking about God is. What's comforting, though, is that in both cases, the amount of talking I do about the other person does not affect how much they love me. Both Elizabeth and God, though I deserve neither, will love and pursue me no matter the quantity nor quality of what I say about them. That is a blessing.

Somedoby to Love, Part 2

Read Part 1 Here

The one beauty of a long distance relationship is that it stands or falls on communication. If it survives, then you are able to communicate very well. If it doesn’t, well, you apparently can’t. Still, day after day it begins to wear on you, having someone so dear so very far away. Sometimes, I doubted the validity of it all. Other times, it has been more real to me than my next breath. I began to make good on my intention to love her. I did the sweet boyfriend things: texted her every night after she goes to bed, so she had a message waiting for her when she woke up; went to visit her at least once a month; and, naturally, gave her flowers every time I visited, often accompanied by dark chocolate (her favorite).

I began to notice, the more affectionate I grew toward Elizabeth, the more affection I had, the more affection I wanted to give, and the more affection I wanted to see all people give each other. I also began to see manners of displaying that affection more and more. Even in Rubik’s cubes. So I sent her a picture one morning, claiming the artistic validity of a heart comprised of a Rubik’s cube:

“We're walkin' into the fields.
We're walkin into the forest.
The moon is before us.
Up above
We're holdin' hands in the rain
S-sayin' words like I love you
D-d-d'you love me? Yeah

My my heart like a kick drum
My my heart like a kick drum
My my heart like a kick drum
My my love like a voice.”
—The Avett Brothers “Kick Drum Heart”

I made her a mixtape of songs that reminded me of what we had. And another. The second mix I titled “i carry your heart with me” after an E.E. Cummings poem I quite like. It goes like this:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

This made the difficulty less difficult, knowing that I carried her heart, and she carried mine. The problem was that because we had each other’s heart, our hearts were still not together. But I was okay with “fearing no fate” because “she was my fate.” Some days I literally looked up at the sky and thought that “whatever a sun will always sing” was her.


The real predicament came when I realized that the choice I had made, to love Elizabeth, no matter what, had actually happened. You must understand, in my experience of being me, normally the things I choose to do of my own will fail relatively terribly, as my will is very weak. So when this one thing I had willed actually came to be, the logical solution is that something supplemented my own will. Does this mean that the choice was not mine? No. But was I alone in making it? I think not. And, to be honest, I am glad it was not—I would have probably chosen something a lot dumber.

Still, I now had the dilemma of my love. I loved Elizabeth. Normally this is a prerequisite for marriage. But I wasn’t ready for marriage, was I? I had always heard about guys being scared of commitment, and scoffed at the possibility that I would fall into such a pathetic condition. No, I would be a real man, buck up, and propose when I came to such a juncture. But when I realized that I might actually be in love, it genuinely scared me. When you are in love, true love, real love, there is nothing that anyone can tell you beforehand, there is no experience you have had off of which can base your thoughts. You have no idea what to do.

“People, people, people, they make it sound so easy
They say just do what your heart tells you to
But sometimes you cannot feel it
Sometimes you cannot hear it
Sometimes it won’t talk back to you
And yeah I know you love me
And yeah I want to love you back
And how I know you love me
And how I want to love you bad.”
—The Avett Brothers “Pretty Girl From San Diego”

I was nowhere near ready to make that commitment, and yet, everything in my life was ready for it. My pastor friend encouraged me to press on, telling me that commitment is like a swimming pool, you can’t expect to get a feeling for it by dipping your toes in on the side. The only way you are going to get used to the temperature is by jumping in headlong. So I decided to jump.

On the seventh of July, as we were driving from her parents’ house in Florida, to my family in South Carolina, while I was sharing parts of who I am that no one had been privy to before, I told her I loved her. This is, I have heard, a huge milestone. For Elizabeth and myself, it was inevitable. There was no other way it could have happened. The way we treated each other—loved each other—provided for no other circumstance than this. One day in February I asked a girl to go to Chick-fil-a with me, and five months later I am in love.

“I say hey I'll be gone today
But I'll be back all around the way
It seems like everywhere I go
The more I see
The less I know
But I know one thing:
I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you

I've been a lot of places all around the way
I've seen a lot joy and I've seen a lot of pain
But I don't want to write a love song for the world,
I just want to write a song about a boy and a girl”
—Michael Franti “Say Hey (I Love You)”

Love has occasionally been viewed as requirement for marriage. I subscribe to such a tradition, and was immediately aware of the impending doom of my marriage. I say doom because I could see no positive ending to the matter. Having lived with myself for twenty one and one-half years at this point, I had begun to notice my tendency to be a jackass, and the consistent degradation of many relationships such a tendency causes. Naturally, a relationship as weighty as this would necessarily result in an even more weighty screw up on my part. Past experiences began to rise in my memory: every girl, every failure. It hurts some, because I wanted to share everything with her, but I didn’t want to hurt her with my semi-secret mistakes.

At this point in our story, I fell into a twofold trap: first, I assumed that I would have been able to fully and successfully love Elizabeth for the rest of my life all on my own strength; second, I completely removed her feelings from my calculations. I seemed to have forgotten that, if I was incapable of loving her, if I did not love her, then she would have probably let me know. Love, while it is not a feeling, can always be felt. We felt it.

“I got secrets from you, you got secrets from me
Because you're so worried about what I'm gonna think,
Baby I'm worried too.
But if love is a game, girl, then you're gonna win.
I'll spend the rest of my life bringing victory in,
If you want me to, yeah!”
—The Avett Brothers “Paranoia in B-flat Major”

The real test of love is in real life. Not in the happy, romantic, lovey-dovey moments. Even Hollywood can nail that. Love comes in when life comes in: honest, average life. I realized at some point in our relationship that Elizabeth asks “Why?” when deciding to do something, and I tend to ask “Why not?” This gives rise to serious conflicts when I decide to do something obnoxious just for obnoxiousness’ sake, and she wants to behave like a reasonable adult.

Elizabeth eats slowly, with purpose, while I tend to inhale my meals with the speed of the latest Hoover vacuum. She likes to plan things and be organized; I prefer spontaneity—that is unless something undermines the plan I had in mind—in which case I freak out. I take what are often joking discussions and slam them into heated arguments.

Each of these concerns has the potential to be a serious problem. Or not. The choice is ours. I could resolve every issue we ever have, I could work very hard to make sure that she never has a problem with anything I do, and she could do the same. I could buy her flowers, write her poems, massage her feet each and every day, but that wouldn’t be our love.

Love is a funny thing in that you can’t earn it. I don’t love her because she’s done the right things to make me do so; as if love were a cause-effect equation where she could force my hand into falling in love with her. No, I love her because she is mine. Because there is an ideal world, and that world includes me in love with her, us loving each other. I love her because that is the task that God has given me: not that it is a chore, a Sisyphian struggle that I must simply undergo; rather it is a blessing and a calling that fulfills me when I do it, rather than draining my effort and resources.

“Don't care where we're goin’, just wanna be with you.
Put your head on my shoulder, tell me what you been through.
When I lose my focus, you remind me of the truth.
Lift us up to the heavens for a bird's eye view.

One woman for me:
Other half of my soul, you are my queen.
One woman for me:
Other half of my soul, roots of my tree .”
—Matisyahu “Unique is My Dove”

You may be wondering what more there is to say? Just a few closing statements: our story is not extraordinary, although for us, it is both ordinary and life changing at the same time. I doubt you have been able to glean life lessons from my words—you, reader, are probably wiser than myself. I hope you are left with the impression that this story is little more than mundane, because that is where I live, and that is where you live, and if you have found love, or if you are going to find love, I all but guarantee that is where it will be—in everyday life.

On the ninth of October, in the year of our Lord 2010, I took Elizabeth to the Smithsonian Postal Museum in Washington, D.C. A small white box in my pocket went off in the metal detector. Afterward, we had a picnic lunch at a beautiful park adjacent to the Washington Monument. After a considerable amount of wasting time and rambling conversation, I had Elizabeth stand up next to me, told her much of what you have just read, and asked her if she would marry me. When I pulled the little white box out of my pocket, I opened it upside down. She still said yes. There is not much more that I can tell you. You have arrived at the end of the story. But we haven’t.

“She keeps it simple
And I am thankful for her kind of lovin'
'Cause it's simple

No longer do we wonder if we're together
We're way past that
And I've already asked her
So in January we're gettin' married.”
—The Avett Brothers “January Wedding”

Something That Lasts Forever, Like A Greeting Card

The other night I caught the tail end of (500) Days of Summer, a film, you may recall, that I quite liked. It takes a special class of movie to blow your mind each time you see it. I spent the last half hour leaning murmuring "So good!" over and over again as each new scene came.

I think part of the reason I loved it so much was, as someone pointed out, it is one of a rare class of movies: a romantic comedy, surrounding a breakup, from the man's point of view, where he feels utterly screwed over. And it was well done along the way.

Plus the things it has to say about love and fate are pretty cussin' fantastic. I like it because of it's plentiful points yet lack of singular resolution. Good stuff, good stuff indeed.

I am not even joking when I say that it may be one of my favorite films ever. And it's a romantic comedy? Who'da thunk it? If you have not seen this film, then that is an error in your judgment that needs to be fixed.

My Heart, It Keeps Me Broke

An excellent song and one of my perpetual favorites by Jars of Clay. I have to fight to not put it on every single playlist I make. This week, it seems particularly pertinent.

"Mirrors and Smoke" by Jars of Clay, from Good Monsters

[resonating lines in bold, hear the song here]

I'm feeling older than my years
I'm feeling pain inside my chest
It's love that keeps me silent
It's my silence that you detest
Rivers flow into the oceans
And oceans never fill
I want to kiss your lips, but I know I never will

Love's a hard decision to risk impending choke
But love will keep you wishing
And my heart will keep me broke

I blew flowers, gave you candy to even out the guilt
I sent you greeting cards with messages
that I could never write
Rivers flow into the oceans
And oceans never fill
I want to let you know me
But I know I never will

Love's a contradiction
Many mirrors and smoke
Love will keep you wishing
My heart will keep me broke

You will always want me
And I'll always want to leave
Even though I cut your wounds
You still deny they're real
Rivers flow into the ocean
Oceans never fill
I want to lay my life down
But I know you never will

Love's a strange condition
With all the doubts it can invoke
You love keeps me wishing
And my heart keeps me broke

Baby, don't you cry, 'cause I got it all figured out
You always make me sad
But that's what true love is all about
Rivers never fill the oceans
But oceans always feel
The waters reaching deep inside them
I guess they always will

Love's a constant mission to a world you never spoke
Love, it keeps you wishing
My heart, it keeps me broke...
Mirrors and Smoke

Maybe it is Me, Maybe it is Her

Dating is hard. (Some may feel obligated to insert their "No Sh*t, Sherlock" here, a point I am perfectly willing to concede). It is harder than I remember.

Then again, since I've really screwed up my relationships since my last "official" relationship. Maybe it's just been a while. Maybe I'm just missing some key component.

Or maybe I'm just growing up. Maybe I feel "out of it" because the "in it" I am used to is from a younger, less mature, more selfish High School T.J. Maybe what used to be the norm is no longer acceptable. Maybe God wants something else for me.

Maybe it's Maybelline?

Whatever the case. I do remember it sucking this bad when it sucked. I do remember the suck.