Dear Terry,
Happy 5 year anniversary. Wow its been that long? But I remember like it was yesterday. Seeing your unforgettable smile for the first time. So here we are 5 years later, and we are almost on the edge of getting married. November 8th 2015. So what got us this far? Love is the answer I come up with. Love for one another, but not by definition.
What is Love? By definition from the dictionary -
" The most spectacular, indescribable, deep euphoric feeling for someone.
Love is an incredibly powerful word. When you're in love, you always want to be together, and when you're not, you're thinking about being together because you need that person and without them your life is incomplete.
This love is unconditional affection with no limits or conditions: completely loving someone. It's when you trust the other with your life and when you would do anything for each other. When you love someone you want nothing more than for them to be truly happy no matter what it takes because that's how much you care about them and because their needs come before your own. You hide nothing of yourself and can tell the other anything because you know they accept you just the way you are and vice versa.
It's when they're the last thing you think about before you go to sleep and when they're the first thing you think of when you wake up, the feeling that warms your heart and leaves you overcome by a feeling of serenity. Love involves wanting to show your affection and/or devotion to each other. It's the smile on your face you get when you're thinking about them and miss them.
Love can make you do anything and sacrifice for what will be better in the end. Love is intense, and passionate. Everything seems brighter, happier and more wonderful when you're in love. If you find it, don't let it go. "
And as I read the definition above I realized there is one major part the definition is missing. The hard times, the struggles, the miles between us, the storms, the legal red tape, attorneys, disappointment, no support from friends and family at times, YELLING, traveling on jets, hotels that suck, staph infections, hospital for weeks, arguments, cultural differences, buying a home for the family, selling the home for the family, hair color dyed gone wrong, I'm fat one year- I have muscles the next at 178 lbs - and now fat again at 210 lbs, paper work, lazy incompetent workers, stroke, lots of places we have both moved, new schools, teachers that care - or don't care, cavities, brush your teeth, Typhoons, wasted time, phones not answered or service not working every week, slow internet café signal, and our phones disconnecting 10 plus times a day.
AND YET WE ARE HERE................
Still loving one another for every thing were are great at and not so great at. The dictionary definition of Love should also define by definition that if any one can endear all this after 5 years................well than you must also be in Love. Because life is not all the time happy.
I say %@#* the definition. I say we are LOVE. OUR OWN LOVE, and by my definition we are everything that makes love. After 5 years I love you now more than ever, because you are true, you are the strongest woman I know, and you love me, we love each other. We always have..........
I look forward to our marriage, the kids, and the ups and downs.
Love always,
Christopher -