It’s tough. I compare every relationship that I’ve been in to the relationship my parents have. They’ve been together since high school. The very beginning, to be exact. They’ve loved each other unconditionally for all the years they’ve shared, and this year they’ll be celebrating their 23rd year of marriage. They met and fell in love when they were teenagers, and this year they’ll both be celebrating their 50th birthdays. I look at them and I see love. If you know my parents, you know they act like they’re in their twenties. They talk the way my friends and I talk, and they are way too “hip” to not remember what it’s like being 21.

I know I’m extremely lucky to have parents so deep in love that it makes me 100% optimistic for that same type of relationship… in the future. I think I’ve struggled with trying to make things work the same exact way they have for my mom and dad. I remember being absolutely “in love” with one boy throughout middle school, dating him for years. Then I went through a rebellious stage and dated a “bad boy” for one year. Another one for a year and a half. And finally, my ex for the last five years. In each of the relationships I was convinced that I was going to live out a long little fairytale like my parents have, only to realize that my parents’ story isn’t my story.

Sometimes it seems as though love is everything the bible says that it isn’t. Odd, right?

Ahhh, even though I frustrate myself with the comparisons… I know that when it’s right, it’s true, and it’s “it,” my children will be able to say about my husband’s and my love, exactly what I say about the love my parents share. It’s unconditional and everlasting.