More today than yesterday

Like most parents, I want the best for my children. Material things are nice but it’s the things money can’t buy that I want the most for them. Happiness, health, peace, contentment, and above all; love. We all have an idea of what love looks like to us during various phases of life. When we’re children, the love for our parents is unmatched. As we get older, perhaps the unobtainable love of a celebrity or boy band holds precedence over our mom and dad. Then one day, the classmate you sat by in school for the last 6 years suddenly becomes less annoying and talking to them makes you blush and gives you butterflies: puppy love. Hopefully as an adult, you’re lucky enough to find that person you want to spend the rest of your life with, and you’ve reached a top-tier kind of love! So, you thought…

The song, “More today than yesterday” by Spiral Starecase, could not resonate more with me. I can confidently say, I love my husband more than I did the day I married him and that is the type of love I want my children to find. The type that grows and changes with you and all your various stages of life. I’m not talking about the “perfect” love we see on social media because this type of love isn’t always pretty. It’s not obligatory or mundane, nor is it easy. It’s something you choose day in, and day out and never stop working on. I look back on my life thus far with my husband and laugh fondly at what I thought love was. I thought love was our wedding day, vacations and celebrations! To my surprise, it’s everything in between those moments.

It’s becoming homeowners together and all the adulting that comes with it. It’s raising babies who cause sleepless nights, low energy, and even lower bank accounts. It’s watching those babies turn into teenagers and experiencing worry and heart ache only a parent can feel but doing it with the only other person on earth who can empathize with you. It’s sneaking away to vent about those same kids then agreeing how much you love them anyway and racing home to be with them. It’s coping with sickness and healing and your spouse being the only person you want by your side taking care of you during your most vulnerable state. It’s sticking up for the other even if you know they are in the wrong because you always have their back. This love is moments of having a million things to talk about one day and nothing to talk about the next. It’s being content with sitting in silence, because you’re silent together. It’s inside jokes and conversations that are had with just a look across a room. It’s cuddling on the couch binge watching a tv series together one day and watching something that only interests you, in separate rooms, the next. This type of love is being okay with doing an activity alone or with a friend but happily returning home to see your spouse even if it’s only been a few hours.

It’s about wanting to go through life’s boring, sad, happy, scary, and exciting days with no one else but your spouse. With this kind of love, you get to live life with your best friend. Someone who knows you more than anyone else on earth and who you are 100% yourself with. Without them, you truly feel empty because they are your other half. There is no “you” without them and you never want there to be. Our love isn’t perfect or always easy, but I know it’s love that will last a lifetime. I pray my children find the kind of love their dad and I have: unquestionable, can’t live without, ever growing, love.