I don’t want to talk about chocolates and hearts and romantic dinners. I don’t want talk about moonlit walks or handholding on the beach . Those are other people’s ideas of romance and love that aren’t really what happens. No, I want to talk about the hard work of love, the day after day , ongoing , never-ending , one thing after another work of love. Love is hard work and it is work that never ever ends.

Love is about being woken up at 6 in the morning and hearing about the worries she has. Love is about seeing her being mad at you for something stupid you did and standing there and taking it because she’s right. Love is about going to see her parents year after year and not understanding where they are coming from and growing to love them.

Love is about the arguments about what to do when your kid goes of the rails, and is about what to do when there’s not enough money. It’s about making her laugh when you don’t want to laugh and is about caring the laundry from the basement when you just want to sit and watch your show.

It’s about picking her up from work for 202 years cause she refuses to get a licence and about hearing all about the minutiae, really listening, when your brain is stuck on a meeting you had at work three hours earlier. It’s about vacations where you see her overwhelmed with the memory of the place she thought it would be,  and seeing it live up to that expectation. it’s about arguing about the state of the world and about listening for the 10 millionth time about her tiny house obsession.

Love is about staying in the conversation and the argument and the laughter and the expectations and fears and the hope and the pure joy of seeing things we’ve worked on for years and years finally, finally, finally get some where. Love is the long game when you’d sometimes rather have the coach call in someone else to take your place. Love is about the pure pig-headed stubbornness to never ever give up on her and her on you. It is so much more than a box of candies or a card or a dinner. It is what love is about and that love goes on for years and years and carries you both through times of despair and times of laughter.

This is the heart of our romance. So happy Valentines Day Heather, I love you.