Love and Toasters

I've been thinking lately, as the 10th anniversary of our wedding approaches...about things that last 10 years. Or things that should. Or things I kept that shouldn't. Weird? Not necessarily deep thoughts, but then, maybe...maybe they are.

I've lived in 3 places since getting married, and hung the same decor in all of them...until recently when I took down the wall hanging (a wedding gift). We bought an iron with Target gift cards (wedding gifts)...and just this week our new iron arrived. After almost 10 years of use (and multiple unfortunate droppings), the old iron just wasn't working anymore (spilling water out and such). My crock pot (another wedding gift, of course) has one of the outer handles broken off, but it still works fine, so I'm keeping it. I recently threw out a spaghetti server with all the little plastic "grabber things" broken off. Other items, like my kettle/hot pot, and my coffee maker, are still going strong, and somethings (like our toaster oven...we're on our 3rd one) broke a long time ago. I guess after 10 years, some things just need to go.

I guess in this "convenient" world in which we find ourselves, 10 years is a long time to last. Especially if you've been dropped, mishandled, not cleaned up and shined up properly or ignored. Things break if they aren't cared for. Or they break because they have been used. Or abused. Sometimes things break just because...no reason, really, other than carelessness, maybe.

So here is the tangent, bear with me,

"Life makes love look hard" That is quote from a Taylor Swift song (that I love). Does it? I've been wrestling with that line ever since I first heard it. Does life really make love look hard to pull off? With everything we have at our fingertips, love should be pretty easy to accomplish successfully. Because unlike all our things, it doesn't wear out when it's used. It's not an object, it's a living thing. It grows. But, like our things, it does (or can) "wear out" when it's abused and not tended to.

So maybe we ("we" being, people, in general, in the world) think of love as something we have? Something we own, like a toaster. It's great while it lasts, but eventually, we need a new one. Instead we should think of it as something we ARE and something that needs to be cared for, and grown. Not unlike a child, I suppose. They'll grow on their own, but they do need a little help (food, water & other nurturing). I don't know. I guess that is the deep part of it, right there. With all the knowledge we have at our disposal, it should be fairly easy to love, in theory. Unfortunately, dying to selfishness and pride are about the hardest things ever, I guess.

I suppose in this day and age (of high divorce rates and unhappy people all over the place), 10 years is a long time for love to last. I personally feel like it's been short. It's not been long enough. Love is a dance perfected over time, and we've not spent enough time at it, to have it perfectly down pat. Not that I think we're lacking at all in the journey, but when I look back over 10 years, I can see the easy progression. How things that used to be hard to do, are now succinctly on beat, in perfect synchronization - and come as naturally as breathing. You can't learn a reflex like that in 1 year, or even 5...10 years just tips the scales I think...

So I wonder how many other things I'll have gone through by the time we get to 20 years. I wonder if there will be any wedding gifts remaining? I'm sure there will be a few. It will be amazing to see how much bigger love has grown.