This may be a bit off-topic, as it doesn’t have much to do with writing or the industry. But it does have to do with love, and since I write love and romance, I hope you won’t mind. Every story I write is a chance to explore yet another facet of love, but of course I would know nothing–or at least not much–on the subject if it wasn’t for my husband. He had surgery recently (totally routine, nothing to worry about, but of course I worried) and it got me thinking. So I wrote this.

I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately. It’s something that must take a lifetime to truly understand, but this is what I know so far:

Love is being comfortable with one another but not just comfortable because you know each other so well or because you know each other’s habits. Love is comfortable because you feel most comfortable when you’re with that person. When I’m sick or upset or I want to relax, I don’t reach for a blanket or coffee or even my mother so much anymore. I reach for him.

Love is a whirlwind. There are romantic walks on the beach, trips to faraway places, explosive lovemaking, and a lot of laughing. It’s everything the romance novels and romantic movies say. But it’s also arguing over trivial things, arguing over important things, picking the other person up on the side of the road because their car broke down, late-night trips to the ER, screaming, crying, skipping fun things to fix a broken pipe.

Love is life. Two lives entwined, in fact, and like life it has its ups and downs. By choosing to entwine mine with someone else’s, I’ve chosen to work through those ups and downs. There is no other option.

Love hurts. Constantly. My heart is always full to bursting with love for the other person and on the brink of breaking at the very thought of losing that person. Our lives are entwined, and we’ve made that choice, but the odds of two lives ending at precisely the same moment are very slim. Who will be the first to go and when?

Love is indescribable. It’s something that grows and changes but at its core remains the same. Love is one unique person merging with another unique person and that in itself makes each love unique. Fiction offers ideas, hints, and flashes, but love is something intangible, something that is at once a surprise and something familiar.

Most of all, love is a mystery. No one ever knows what they’re in for. Love is more magical than I ever could have hoped for. Doubt does not exist. But love is also more work than I anticipated. For better or worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer. No one ever knows what that means. Not really. Not until they hit rock bottom or the highest elation. I still haven’t been there. I haven’t lost my mother or contracted an incapacitating disease. I haven’t won the lottery or birthed a child. I don’t know what I’m in for. I don’t know what we are in for.

I just know who I want by my side through it all.