On relationships and love…

Fourteen years ago today, I got married. Shawn and I got married. We jumped the broom, declared an intention to be together publicly.

Fourteen years ago I knew very little about relationships. It’s funny to even think about the commitment that we made that day – did I know what it meant? Not at all.

Have we had a good fourteen years? Undoubtedly. Those who know us both well can see that there is plenty of love, cooperation and joy in our shared life.

As I come upon my own discoveries about what love is and what love looks like, I feel the amount of love in my life grow and grow. And that benefits Shawn. It benefits everyone. But it starts with me. And that’s the funny thing about love, it’s a solo journey.

I used to think that love was a shared venture and that you contributed love to some kind of mutual invisible kitty jar, or you deducted love from it and bore the consequences. But the love stays in your own bank account.

And a relationship is really just a choice to love in parallel with someone else trying to figure out their own finances. Sometimes investing and growing. Sometimes borrowing and worrying. Now that bit about loving in parallel scares a lot of people because we tell ourselves a common societal lie about how bound and entwined we are with our lovers. We think we complete each other. We think it’s meaningful if we finish each other’s sentences.

But we’re in our own existence. Always.

And that, to me, was a huge revelation in my relationships and a big call to take on radical responsibility for myself. It created so much space for me, where I had not felt space before.

When we are lucky enough to share moments with some cool people, husband or not, we might notice that it’s incredibly respectful, sacred and utterly beautiful to see two separate bubbles of love bumping along the road of life, figuring it all out together.

Michelle xx