How do you know you're in love?

My wide and I are celebrating 10 years together this year. (We've been married 9 of them.) I proposed on our 6-month anniversary, which didn't seem too sudden at the time, but now (now?) it's brought up questions by friends. The main question centers around: "How did you know you were in love?", followed closely by "How did you know you wanted to marry her?"

The simple answer: I didn't. Sometimes you just go on a gut hunch, and you communicate everything with your partner. (I'm trying to keep this gender neutral because--this is also a hunch--all couples have the same basic communication issues regardless of sexual orientation of the couple.)

We were "introduced" via match.com way back in the days when internet dating was unheard of and made fun of. (Sherry likes to point out that she found me online, and I should be grateful she did. Yes, I'm grateful.) Sherry and I talked almost every day in the weeks before we met, often until 1 or 2am. We'd talk about bad relationships, good relationships, family, hopes & dreams, goals--both personal and professional, and anything else that came up. We knew volumes about each other before we met.

We met in a Starbucks on a sunny June day in 2003. We chatted first inside, then by Lake Mendota. It didn't seem odd that we had more to say, even though we had been talking for weeks before. We kissed goodnight around 9 that night...no more than a kiss.

She's still my muse for many love songs. I think of her when I hear love songs from everyone from Barry Manilow to Billy Joel, from Tim McGraw to Journey. She's made me a better person--I'm both in better shape than when we met and I weigh less.

Back to the beginning of today's blog. How do you know you're in love? You value their opinion. You share your thoughts and feelings without fear of being judged. You don't feel the need to put up a false appearance in front of the person. You don't need to flirt in front of them. You look into their eyes and feel the love--even from across the room. Even a quick kiss is terrific and lifts your spirits. You don't read something into them not spending every minute with you because you each live your lives, but know that you'll be together soon. Just maybe not soon enough.

How do you know you're ready for marriage? Common hopes and dreams are good, but worthless without ongoing communication of those goals to the other.

Finally, there are no guarantees of a happy marriage " 'til death do you part". Marriage is a lifelong job, and there are many days when it's hard work. There are days when I frustrate Sherry and she's not as happy with me as she is on other days. However, the love she has for me pulls her through the tough times and we live to love another day....together.

Refocusing Life & Getting it Right

 I'm less than 3 hours back from vacation and, as usually happens when I visit northwestern Wisconsin, I relax and refocus my brain. I make more resolutions in 4 days than I've done all year. I think about what I truly value in life, what I want to be doing (personally and professionally), and what I can do in the short-term to get me to the long-term goals I want to achieve. I've always loved to write, so one resolution was to restart my blog.

That said, I vow to get my facts right. I'm reminded of the importance of getting facts right when a teenager overheard a news story and said, "Wow! The Brewers are in trouble! Rickie Weeks is going to prison for 3 years!" I was initially perplexed, then I realized the source of the confusion. He'd overheard a story of Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence officer who leaked hundreds of thousands of pages of military secrets to Wikileaks. The teenager HEARD "leaks" (rhymes with "Weeks") and "prison", then mentally combined the two. I corrected the issue to the teenager (who'd already repeated it to other teenagers, all of whom denied that there's such thing as "Wikileaks"), but this reminded me of the importance of getting the facts right the first time, not just repeating the first rumor I hear without getting confirmation. We're all guilty of not getting confirmation of time to time, to the detriment of us all. We're all in such a rush to be right that few take the time to confirm the accuracy of the "facts" we repeat.

There are other resolutions I'll mention in future blog posts, and I want to continue to create achievable resolutions for myself. Some are to make the world a little bit better, but most are simply because I see a problem and I'm sick of doing nothing about it. If I do nothing, who will?

"If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make the change". (Michael Jackson)