I Will Follow You Into The Dark.

One of the sweetest songs I have ever heard is "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie. Now, while most of people think of the song as about death (with an atheist overtone); it's actually about the long journey of love. The true marathon of marriage and what it means to have a partner that you want to spend the rest of your life with. And all that entails.

You see, we all romanticize love as this passionate thing. A conflagration of passion and emotion. The great fire between two individuals that burns ever hot. What isn't considered is the quiet times. The boring times.  Times when you don't really have much to talk about - even though you're spending the rest of your days together. When mundane existence is the most prevalent then in your love's story. When the days of wedding bliss transform into a marital monotony, we begin to question if we have made the right decision. Or if it was "worth it". Those doubts are normal - but the real question is this: Will the person I have agreed to spend the rest of my life with suffer when I pass on?

You see, the biggest clause in any lifelong partnership is the inevitable demise of the person you're spending the rest of your life with. With life long coupling comes the death of one of you. Which is why the one thing I am looking for in my mate is will she stay long enough to be my widow. Will my death break her heart into a thousand pieces; or will be be one more fragment in her life's story? Truth be told, if I had any qualifying question, it would be that.

I am loyal. It's just who I am. If I love you and we are truly a couple - there isn't a force that will keep me from you. I will heaven and earth just to spend the day with you. But I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I will not live forever. I already know that if I were to marry, she would outlast me. Out live me. There will be a day that will pass when I am with you no longer and even I do not have any charge over that. But, in the strange off chance of life's weird winding road that she were to pass before I; then, yes, I would follow her into the dark.

I have spent too much of this life alone. I know of the quiet solitudes of the night. To not share a bed with someone. To not have someone be an centrical  part of my life. But, once that ends - once someone else joins me in that journey towards forever, I know I will never be the same. That bond, that partnership, will be with me until the end of my days. Even through the boring passage of everyday existence.

"You got to spend some time, love. You got to spend some time, with me. I know that you will find, love. I will possess your heart." was one of the opening line of another one of Death Cab's songs ("I Will Possess Your Heart"). Again, it harkens to the opening lines of any relationship. The yearning and desire to spend every moment with the one person who makes you feel the most alive. When the sheer moment of a thought of the individual makes you smile uncontrollably. They call it the "honeymoon phase" and there was one notable Hollywood marriage (Bob and Dolores Hope) proves that even though some marriages last for well over 50 years doesn't mean that they don't remain inseparable. Yet, the best analogy of marriage is the feeling of taking your boots off after spending the day of them. The sheer relief and lack of heaviness that washes over you. That person who still makes you smile and chuckle after spending decades with them. And the one, that one, who will be shaken to the core by your death. That's truly what love is.

This may seem like rambling, but it's something that's been on my heart and in my mind lately. I'm about to have a pretty important birthday (next Wednesday, on the 13th), and I've had far too many of those by myself. Friends sure. Family sure. But a partner... not so much. There's a longing far stronger than I'm willing to admit. Home is not a physical place, but a person you spend it with. And that, my dearest friends. is what I long for the most.