Only Through Love

I was going through my box of letters from Drew as I was getting stuff together to make the ol boy a Valentine (c’mon, you know I love this stuff!) and came across a letter that stopped me in my tracks.  Drew and I starting dating at the end of my freshman year of college and this particular letter is from a winter when Drew was living in Aspen and I had just returned from India, so…second semester of my junior year of college.  We tried, rather unsuccessfully, to break up for this time, and despite taking a stab at dating other people, we just found ourselves getting closer and closer despite the half a country that was between us.  During this time Drew wrote to me almost weekly, sending along post cards and <<<sigh>>> mixed tapes of music that he was checking out from the library and compiling for me.  While he was frying sausages in lift houses and seeking out perfect powder days, I was sorting through the literal and metaphorical ashes of my burned down dorm, and we were sharing those experiences through pen and ink and through music across the miles.  Drew came home at the end of the ski season, we got engaged my senior year of college, we were married the following year, and the rest my friends, is our growing history.  That time formed one of the tenants of our marriage though, which is that we both believe in having experiences independently of one another at least a little of the time, so that we will always have plenty to say to one another, and so that we are always reminding each other through our actions that trust is the core of our foundation.

So this letter that I found that kind of rocked my married world is sort of epic, and in the vein of keeping one or two things sacred in the blogosphere, I won’t share the whole thing, but I thought that I would share one little quote that Drew wrote because it is Drew Walton 110%.

“Only through love are we able to have understanding and fully grasp our own existence and all of the complete beauty in this world.  Only through love can we handle our daily lives and the world in which we live.”

With that in mind, I have to tell you that I love having a reason to celebrate LOVE in the middle of the freezing cold flat grey winter, and that unlike most out there, I don’t see this as a Hallmark holiday, but as a much needed reminder that love, in all of its forms, is worth recognizing.  Much in the same way that we spend November saying thanks, December lighting candles to drive the darkness away, and January laying plans for will surely be the best year ever, to me it makes quite a bit of sense that we would spend February celebrating all of the love that we have to give and receive.  This quiet time of year is an excellent chance to revisit the basic principles of the Golden Rule, and to let a little more love in.  Bleeding heart cheesy hopeless wonder loving woman that I am, I can’t help but believe that John Lennon was quite right.  Love IS all you need, and all you need is love.

Happy Valentine’s Day, m’dears.