A True Love Story

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I love, love, love comments. Not only do they make me feel better, they make me feel HEARD. This is a feeling many of us struggle with during IF, I think. Knowing that unless you've been through this, you don't really understand it makes me feel sort of invisible in a way.

Anyway, I digress. I love comments. However, I feel the need to comment on a comment left recently on my blog. This was not a nasty "who the hell are you to say blah blah blah" comment left by some anonymous poster. In fact, I believe it was a compliment. However, it struck a nerve with me and I feel I need to clarify.

A day or so ago, a new reader commented that it sounded like Mo and I have a "true love story." This is not anything like any comment ANYONE in real life has ever made to us. Not because they doubt that we love each other -- within ten minutes of meeting either one of us, it is very clear that we do. However, our story is nothing like what I expected love to be when I was young(er). Or even when we got married, for that matter. Our "courtship" and marriage have been so full of ups, and downs, and twists and turns, potholes and detours and outright roadblocks that there are days when I wonder how we ever made it this far.

Our first challenge hit us just after we got engaged, several months before we ever made it to the altar. It was a "do or die" situation that I naively plunged straight into, not knowing just how much it would affect the next seven years. I stood by my husband in a time when many girls my age (just 21) wouldn't -- maybe couldn't? -- have.

We started our baby-making journey right away, though God in his wisdom perhaps foresaw that the timing just wasn't right. Because within just a few months of our marriage, we were hit with several more life-altering challenges. (I know I'm being kind of vague, here, but out of respect for Mo's privacy -- and perhaps a desire to avoid having to justify myself -- I just don't feel like "going there" right now).

You know those stress lists? The ones that list all the horrible things that can happen in life, and then tell you to check off the ones you are facing right now? And how, if you have dealt or are dealing with just one or more of those during the past year then you are under a tremendous amount of stress? Mo and I have faced every single one of those items (and a few more!) during the last six years, many of them simultaneously, and all of them ongoing.

I don't tell you all of this to make you say "Wow, they must be so strong! What a perfect couple!" because that is the furthest thing from the truth. Mo, you see, is NOT my white knight, or my Prince Charming. He is utterly, wonderfully, terribly human. He is weak when he should be strong. He is overly sensitive. He is stubborn. He can be gratingly annoying. He is as far from perfect as you can get.

And so, my friends, am I. As we have faced all the difficult things that life has thrown our way, we have made so many mistakes. I have made so many mistakes. We've argued, we've slept in different rooms. We've threatened one another with separation, with divorce. We've called each other out on all of our human failings. We've dragged the past into the present and thrown each other's mistakes and generosity right back into each other's faces.

We've also hugged and kissed and supported one another. We've cried on each other's shoulders. We've apologized and forgiven one another. We've looked toward the future, together. We've prayed. We've been there for each other, warts and all.

The one thing I have learned through all of this is that love is a choice. It's not something that happens to you, something you accidentally fall into or out of. It's a decision, a commitment. I choose to love Mo, even when he doesn't really deserve it. And, for some reason I'll never understand, he chooses to love me back. It's never easy; in fact, sometimes it's the hardest thing in the world. But it has never been a choice that I regret.

So you see, I have no sparkly tiara and Mo's white horse (if he ever had one) is probably out to pasture by now. A fairy tale we most certainly are not. But maybe, just maybe, this might turn out to be true love after all.