on living a romantic life

I've been thinking a lot about the rest of my life lately.

Last Sunday in church we had a lesson about marriage. One of the leaders was sharing a personal experience about him and his wife. Basically his point was that falling in love for the first time is fun and exciting, but once you're married, that young romance won't be enough to get you through. Eventually it will fade away, and a deeper love built on trust will take it's place. That kind of love is what will pull you though the rough times, that's the kind of love that will last for the rest of your life and throughout eternity. The falling-in-love-for-the-first-time love will have little to do with it.

One of my friends leaned over and whispered to me, "Life sounds so unromantic."

I laughed, "Yeah, haha."

Then I thought about it. And I thought about it some more, and kept thinking about it for the whole week. Do I believe that? Do I believe that the majority of life is boring and unromantic? That life and falling in love is only exciting for a little while and then the rest of life is boring? If that's true, there's really no point in living at all.

Real life isn't all like a movie. That's for sure. But it doesn't have to be boring.

I think as a teenager I want an exciting life. I want to fall in love and travel the world. But I need to face it that it's not all that realistic. It's romantic, and it is also possible. It's totally possible. But it may not happen to me and I need to be okay with that.

Now of course I want to fall in love and get married. It is my most important goal to be married in the temple and start a family.

But if I build my whole life up to when I fall in love, then the rest of my life will be boring. I can't build my life up to one moment, because once it's over, what do I do then? It's like the part on Tangled when Flynn and Rapunzel are sitting in the boat, and Flynn tells her that once she's lived her dream, she has to find a new one.

I can't build my life up to any event or moment or anything. I have to take the adventures as they come, and never stop finding things to be excited about. I don't have to fall in love or travel the world to have an exciting life. I can live a fantastic and thrilling life without any of that.

In fact, I will venture to say I can live a romantic life without having a man at all.

My life can be as romantic as I want it to be. I'm not talking about the falling in love with a man kind of romantic. I'm talking about the Anne Shirley kind of romantic. Romantic like the things that I fall in love with on a daily basis. Romantic like a sunrise. Romantic like listening to 40's music while wearing a pretty dress. Riding a bicycle to work, watching the stars, going on a hike in the early morning, walking through the trees during spring when the cherry blossom petals are falling down like snow. That's the kind of romantic I'm talking about.

I'm not saying that finding true love is not important, because it is. Holy crap it is. I'm definitely not saying to not get after your dreams. You wanna travel? Do it. Make it happen.

Here's what I am saying: Just because you're life is not like a movie does not mean it's not a worthwhile life.

I can't keep waiting to fall in love with a person. The time will come. In the meantime, I'm going to fall in love with the beauty all around me. 

I want to start living the best life I can live instead of trying to live the perfect life I've always imagined. I can't waste time waiting for fun and exciting things to happen to me. I can't afford that kind of time!

Sometimes I need to take a deep breath, go watch the sunset or something and remember that sometimes, it is fun to just be.

Sometimes just living and being and breathing is enough. 

Go live the life you've been given and live it awesome.

you can also find this as a guest post at Catch Ya on the Flipside :)