I'm glad you are here to celebrate!
Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link.
Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.
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It was a busy day, the kind where I eat lunch in my car to make the schedule work. No matter how harried a day is, I am still committed to living unhurried. So when I eat apples, I'm mindful. I pause and chew and taste.
I realize apple cores are evidence of true love.
In a world where creative dates and big bouquets of roses and gushy affirmations on social media for #mcm (Man Crush Monday) or #wcw (Woman Crush Wednesday) is considered true love, an apple core might seem laughable. The world says love should be fancy and make you happy.
This is a dangerous lie to believe.
Happiness is not a dependable marker of love.
Love is about sticking through the hard, even when the hard isn't happy.
The truth is, true love doesn't care about personal happiness. It's not egocentric. It cares about offering happiness to another person.
It's apple cores.
Because the reason I have an apple core is because someone else did the grocery shopping late the night before. Someone else left the apple in plain view for the next morning. Someone else put my happiness ahead of his own.
Rarely is true love fancy.
It throws in a load of laundry at 11 pm and stays up to fold it together.
It takes the dog out in the rain.
It changes the sheets after the toddler gets sick in the middle of the night.
It does the dishes.
It makes the coffee.
It bakes cookies.
It runs into town to pick up and drop off and pick up kids.
It believes making another person's life pleasant is more important than personal happiness.
It is unlikely a bouquet of roses with a love note will ever be delivered to my work. The chances of a profession of love for me on social media is statistically impossible. Unless I believe a creative date is when I ask friends to meet us at a favorite bar for dinner and beer, it isn't ever going to happen.
But I have apple cores and the truth about true love: it isn't fancy and it isn't about my happiness.
The truth remains. The more I love in selfless and unprecedented ways, the happier I am.
This is the paradox of love.
Thanks for sharing your celebrations today.
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You know when the waitress comes around and asks if you'd like a "warm up" for your coffee? I don't notice that my cup has gone a little cold. But after consuming all your carefully chosen letters and phrases, fonts and pauses, a warmth spreads through my soul. I am, as always, so grateful for you. Thank-you for sharing a bit of your warmth [heart] this night.
ReplyDeleteRuth, your post makes me rethink the apple core image as one that conjures up a new notion of love. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteYour post brought me to tears. It is SO SO true. Real love might also be a cup of tea....or perhaps even the tea bag!
ReplyDeleteYay for all those simple, yet powerful, professions of love. They are truly a reason to celebrate!
ReplyDeleteYes, the paradox of love. I could make a list similar to yours. I am so blessed to have this kind of true love in my life. It makes so many other things bearable.
ReplyDeleteI'm keeping the paradox for love in my mind now as my mantra this weekend.
ReplyDeleteI love the way you define love! We see love in so many ways everyday. This is the way to recognize it. Love to you and all in your world.
ReplyDeleteBecca's comment was so perfect!
I love the message of love. The simplicity of the little things that add up to so much love. I am thankful my husband and I have the similar values.
ReplyDeleteAh yes! This is so very lovely.
ReplyDeleteRarely is true love fancy. My favorite line:) Sometimes I think people, young ones especially, think true love is is big moments, big gestures, oversized. But it's not---it's this. And apple cores.
ReplyDeleteLots to think about in this apple core post. "No matter how harried a day is, I am still committed to living unhurried." These are words I need to hear. And because you paused to chew and taste, we received this lovely post about apples and true love.
ReplyDeleteWhen those jewelry ads show "diamond" love, I do wonder if it really happens, because like you, the apples on the counter mean much more.
ReplyDeleteI agree! Love is definitely an apple core. Love is so much more than media tells us.
ReplyDelete