Love/hate?

In less than a week, I pack up Frank, Laura and Kattie and drive all night to Utah for a very good friends wedding. Kristophers best friends since he was about 12 is marrying a good friend of mine from high school. I'm a bridesmaid and Kris is the best man or else we wouldn't be going. Can't afford it, barely making it there and only going to make it because mom and Frank are pitching in to help me.

All this wedding talk has got me thinking. I counted up all the friends I know that are getting, or are, married currently. All that got me thinking about the whole idea of love in the first place. I'm far too analytical for this shit. To me, love is a hormonal reaction. Chemicals in the brain that make you feel good and to keep a prospective mate around to protect and provide for you while you are pregnant or are taking care of, children. It's not to say I don't feel love like everyone else. I love Kristopher, with all my heart. I just see it differently.

Thinking on my views on love and such got me thinking of why I love Kris, what makes those chemicals jump into action and make my heart pound when I hear his key in the lock every day? After almost eight years of being together and nine years of being friends, He still makes me happy and he still is the person I trust the most. Not many people outside of immediate family know this, but Kristopher and I were going to get married last year. Have a big wedding and all that bullshit. It wasn't for any reason other than the fact that he had a very good job with very good insurance and I need medical help in all parts of my body and mind. When he was let go from that job due to economic reasons shutting his shop down, no more reason to get married. We canceled it (I was hugely relieved) and continued on with our lives.
Other people were confused though, how could we cancel our wedding? Were we breaking up? Did we think it wouldn't last between us? No, you idiots. Marriage to us is a piece of paper. A legal document binding us legally. Enabling us to share benefits with each other and any children we may have (there will never be any children however). I understand that most people have a religious background that ties marriage into spirituality and love for another person. This isn't the case for us. I was never baptized but was raised Irish Catholic and Episcopalian. At the age of nine my older brother was getting into paganism. Since I idolized him, I followed. I was a practicing pagan till I was nineteen. Now I'm nothing. Kristopher was raised LDS, he was slipping away when he met me at age 15 and after sitting under a weeping willow one night and talking for hours and sharing one of our first real kisses, he became interested in what I studied and began to study himself. We practiced together but I have moved away from that belief, though I hold onto much of what I learned of meditation, elements, and other superstition and so does he. We don't feel we need to get married to please a god or to be united after death.

So what makes us stay together, people ask? We want no children, we don't plan on getting married, we have no real spiritual beliefs. So why bother staying together? Where's the proof of our love and dedication?

The proof is in the way he stays up with me when I'm convinced I hear voices around me. The way gets up and turns on all the lights and drags me to the living room to watch cartoons to calm me down. The way he lets me scream and cry and be upset with life but never tells me to stop. The way he just deals with an insanely broken girl that can't seem to hold it together long enough to sleep through the night.

I love him. I do anything for him that I can. I try to show him in the ways I know. I buy his favorite foods, I text him every day to tell him I love him. I stand beside him when he wants to step away from his family or friends and escape. Sometimes love just means standing and watching while he works on the car.

Love is different for everyone. Kris and I may not be together forever, we may end next year, next week or five years from now. Either way, being married wouldn't matter, Our feelings matter. Our relationship is built on common interests, shared personalities and the fact that's he'll pull chunks of vomit from my hair before he'll let me wipe it off his face.

To sum it up, Love is vomit.