I Love You ~ Three Words How Many Meanings?
"July 26, 2012Yes the date’s right. This was first posted in 2012. To me it appears to have aged well."
The Life And Times Of J. Brian Waddington
A long time acquaintance of mine has just got engaged. A longer time friend of mine is preparing for her daughters quickly approaching wedding. My wife and I have just celebrated our nineteenth wedding anniversary.
I am almost sixty-one years old and I know that now when I say to my wife 'I love you' it has not the same meaning it had nineteen years ago. This is not to say that it is a better or truer meaning now... just that it is different. Unless my memory is playing games there was even a Rock and Roll song about how the meaning of the word changes over time.
I do not believe that one word can express all that we feel after sharing our lives for almost 25 years. I am convinced that neither prose, poetry nor photography can come close to expressing the complexity of our attachment. Nevertheless bear with me as I try...
About eight years ago Myra and I decided it was time for her to get her doctoral in Peace and Development.
At the time we were living in the small but very comfortable Bamboo house pictured to the left. I Love (there's that word again) my wife and she loves me and that means there is no one we would rather spend more of our time with than each other. But I knew that if she had to cope with my constant presence as she worked on her dissertation one of us would end up in jail for murder. Which is why we built the office that graces the start of this blog.
It seems to me that the Love we share is now built upon;
(1) a realistic understanding of our personalities and how they interact
(2) an appreciation of the others needs
(3) an appreciation of our own needs
(4) compassion for the other
(5) a NEED to help the other become what they need to be
(6) commitment to each other
There is of course much more to our relationship than what I have just written. There is this indisputable fact... for almost a quarter of a century we have kept the 'Three L's' in our life;
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