Love Is Transforming.

In case my nephews' view on love wasn't enough, I'm gifting you with the next installment of what love means, courtesy of my friend's preschool students.  I was DYING as she shared them with me and had to change up the order of sharing musings from other kiddos because these were just too funny to share after the conspiracy holiday.  Before you wet your pants laughing, please remember that we really should just take what 3 year-olds say and apply it to life and be done.

"Love is like a transformer toy. It's fun and then it's not. But if you pretend to be a transformer then that's really fun." Love is SO transforming.  Some days it can make you so damn crazy that you want to cry and other days it carries you through the heaviest burdens and trials and brings insurmountable amounts of happiness. And some days it's just so chill and you look at the person across the room and laugh because they are your lobster (Friends reference) and they are weird and you love it. Some of the greatest examples of transforming love have been my friends who have walked side-by-side with a spouse during a health crisis or some other life rattling event. This fall my dear friend lost her husband to cancer and it was one of the most inspiring and heartbreaking things to watch as she loved him to his very last breath and STILL continues to love and remember him as she raises their three incredible kids who are so much like their daddy.  Love is transforming when imperfections take over and a couple has to strip their pride to decide if they can and want to make their relationship work or give up.  Love is transforming when two people want nothing more than to have a baby and that is not what God has in mind and they have to fight in the trenches of infertility treatments and/or adoption together. The transforming power of love means that you face life together with grit, compassion and faith.

"I think love is for hipsters, spaghettioes, and my mom because they're all weird." Spaghettioes are WAY weird.  Is it a starch, is it meat, does it make me glad that the zombie apocalypse hasn't happened yet and that's all we have to eat? Who really knows, but I concur that love is weird....and some hipsters are dang weird and wear pants that are too tight, but a lot of them are pretty endearing. Many of the endearing kind live in Ogden, my former 'hood, and I heart them. And what about moms?  They are so totally weird, but most of us are weird just like 'em and are too chicken to admit it. Don't tell my mom that I might be one of them.  

"Play dates are super exhausting. You think they like you, but they really just want to play. BORING!" At this point in the conversation, I would have switched in to the sweet, loving feminist in the room and say, "sweetie, ladies don't got no time for the playas. Either they like ya or they don't." Boring wouldn't be my choice of adjective as much as blasted frustrating. I too find play dates exhausting and I'm a grown up. I saw a meme on Pinterest this week about women not wanting to waste time playing and that we just want to get down to business and date. Yep.  Cut the crap and put the word commitment back in your vocab selection and let's do this. Otherwise, stroll on back to high school and play those man child games with your besties. We deserve the best, whether we are male or female, and the games are BORING. Let's be real, let's be raw and let's LOVE!

"I had a movie date."
"That's exciting, what did you watch?"
"I don't remember, I was more sad he didn't notice my lip gloss and eye pretties." Boys. What oddly handsome and necessary creatures. How many of us have dated someone and in the midst of dating we bought new shoes, a pretty dress or actually DID our hair and he didn't notice and we were pissed?  The transformation of love sometimes means that we have to bring those little things that matter to their attention in the form of a bullet point list with the most important at the top.  And if the most important is "I wore red hooker shoes, put on mascara and lip gloss for you so you better notice" then make sure they know it. I'm no expert on dealing with men, but one of the things I've learned from working with a lot of them over the years is they respond better to less fluff and more bullet points. Super romantical, right?

 "Miss A, I love you a whole lot."
"I love you too!"
"Like as much as to the sun and back. Although you might die at the sun, so I can't love you anymore." Damn the boundaries. What are boundaries you ask? Well, if you have to ask me then you go to that corner and I will stay in this corner and go on loving at a level I can....you know the kind where I don't burn up and DIE. I'll admit that it's challenging to put boundaries on certain relationships because we may love too much.  How do we define loving too much?  Loving someone who doesn't love us back as much as we love them just isn't fair. It's sucky, but we deserve better. We so totally deserve to love on the moon and not burn up.  Hashtag: put that on a pillow.  

And so it goes, the humans of a 3 year-old variety have their crap together on love and we should listen up.

The moral of the story: Love changes us, but shouldn't burn us. It calls for a lot of grit and laughter and perhaps some strolling to a real date in our pretty red shoes and it's totally worth it when they're our lobster.

Until next time, my lovelies!
-R