true love waits.

i do not for one minute believe that "love is blind".

i love ernest with every inch of my being, but i am not blind to his faults, nor is he to mine.

no, i believe that true love, is the knowledge of each others faults, and the acceptance of them, so long as they are not harmful, and the ability to live with them.  not to tiptoe around the issues, but to be able to speak about them in a civilized manner and to understand where each other is coming from.

i would never ask ernest to change, nor would he ask me.  we are not abusive to each other, we do not use hateful words or malicious actions.  do we fight?  yes.  do we sometimes speak before thinking?  of course, we're human.  but i know deep down that ernest loves me and he knows that i love (obsess about) him.

there is no jealousy.  i am his and he is mine and i never worry that he would stray, nor does he worry that i would.  we're both grown-ups.  we've grown up apart and we've grown together.  though i hate to be separated from him, we can spend time apart and sometimes we need to.  for the most part we are attached at the hip, but we also maintain separate relationships with our family and friends.  ernest is my whole life, but he doesn't have to be the only person in my world.

and yes, we did need to take a break (a long break) to figure out who we are as individuals and what we want from a relationship.  in the first place, we fell in love too fast at seventeen and with me going away to college.  i still believe that there is no age limit placed on true love, but i also know that making a commitment so young can be a challenge.  we need time to grow up, and we all grow up at different paces.

but when we were ready again to build a life together, we did it the right way.  we have stability.  we have our educations and work experiences to fall back on.  so long as we work hard and put our future ahead of all else, we will never want for anything.