I miss that "love"

Married women (or women who have been with someone for a long time) do you ever look at your life from an outside perspective and wonder what happened? I'm not saying my life sucks, not in the least, but sometimes I think about the love that used to be. The love that is still deep down in there but never shows. That young, fresh love that you shared way back when. You don't need to be young to feel it but it seems like such a struggle to find it.

This might sound stupid but you see this kind of "love" in movies like The Notebook or lately I've been seeing commercials for Dear John. I remember this kind of love. It's really hard to forget that feeling. You feel like you might die if you aren't together 24 hours a day. You have stupid fights which led to tons of makeup sex and fun. You kiss in public without it looking weird because you don't have little kids standing next to you while you do it. You act like a moron because you are so blissful with butterflies and punch drunk love.

Now fast forward to marriage. I've only been married a year and half, legally. I consider the beginning of the end of this love phase to have happened much earlier then that. Add living together, stress, kids & bills to the mix and you have marriage "love". I love my husband and some days I feel a twinkle of that young love but most days its marriage love. You need space from each other or you might rip your significant other's face off. You have stupid fights and one of you sleeps on the couch (preferably the male). You definitely don't kiss in public because you are too concerned with what the hell your kids are doing to stop and actually think about coming close to each other. Forget hand holding cause that's for little kids and teeny boppers. You act pissy towards each other most days because someone didn't take the trash out and the overwhelming smell of diapers & old food is killing you slowly. And your most intimate, adult conversations are about bills and your budget for the month.

I'd like to say I'm going to try my best to get back to a simpler love. Not a young love, not a marriage love but somewhere in between. But it's hard and so is life. I want that feeling even if it's once a month and I'm willing to work for it as long as life doesn't throw a curve ball my way. Maybe we just need to slow down and enjoy each other again for the people we truly are and who we fell in love with in the first place. Maybe we need to look at that person for who they are now in the present as well and admire their 40+ hour work schedule, playful fathering skills, girly whineyness & hairy back. And hopefully they can admire their wife's 24 hour a day schedule, maid & cook services, child bearing & child raising skills and the beauty of a mother, wife, woman inside and out. That's all I ask for.