the rain sounds so peaceful. emma’s falling asleep slowly and the apartment is clean. i’m waiting for perze to come home, and i’ve just had my cup of coffee.
i’ve been trying to decorate our apartment little by little, and although i know that we’ll move out sometime, hopefully next year, i still want to make it home, and make it presentable whenever we have company. i’ve been using my imagination and inovation since we don’t have a very big budget for decor.
i was cleaning out some old thigs from when perze and i were still courting and i found some old love letters that i wrote to him. those were the days when we celebrated our monthsaries by eating out and getting small tiny presents for each other, things that were inexpensive but those that caught our individual fancies, like a book or a dvd. i would spend time crafting out a homemade card and personal hallmark message. i used hammers and scissors, paste, printers, papers and vellums, eyelets and markers…hahah…and that was when we were dating. now that we’re married, i’m still in awe…and although the papers were replaced by pots and pans, the printer with a vaccum, the vellum with rugs and curtains, the eyelets with nails, the paste with detergent, the markers with brushes, the vellum with bills and a budget, i still love him as the girl who had the butterflies, but even deeper now.
it takes me a while to remember the problems we had when we were dating. I remember perze and i having quarrels, disagreements, but not enough to give them their own corner now or even a conclusive name and identity. they were never too big for us to even suggest terminating our relationship. in our time of courtship, that has never been a topic to put on the table, which took a lot of commitment and patience.
i realize that as i get older, i can sometimes miss those days with the butterflies, when things are new and exciting because new love is unpredicatable, but now i’d rather long for our love to grow older. pastor ding was right when he said at my sister’s wedding, that the love story really begins at the altar, because all those challenges that you thought you went through while dating will not compare to those that you face in marriage. It takes more work, more sacrifice and more patience, more revisions of yourselves, more communication and more compromise when two becomes one…when two different people who’ve been their own selves for all those years, to accomodate another whole and become one united body.
ravi zacharias says it best, “nothing is better than new love than old love.” and as the years grow, as we continue to move around, and as we continue to build, i’ll always smile and be proud of those tokens and reminders of love letters of the past when we were young, but i’ll be even prouder when our marriage and love can be a testament when we’re old.
it’s not that i’m lucky or i’ve deserved this, it takes a lot of work to make things work…i encourage everyone in the same way. God loves you and will continue to work in what you desire, just trust him.
- Tags: family
