Embers

My first love was a wildfire. It was a blazing inferno that couldn't be contained. It consumed me, and enveloped me in a wave of such longing. It was beautiful, tragic, and devastating. As a young adult, it's hard to see warning signs, or "red flags" as we call them now. I would do anything to keep the fire burning. I would say anything, or be anyone to keep the flames high, and bright. However, as anyone will tell you, eventually the wildfire will be contained. There may be several miles of devastation and destruction, but it will go out. As I aged, I started to see how damaging the love was. I started to see that the powerful love I once felt, changed into resentment. I resented who I was, the bridges I had burned, and the constant control and manipulation. I finally felt like the heat was too much, and I needed escape. It was hard to breathe, and I was choking on the smoke I used to inhale. My eyes opened to the charred mess that was my life, and the prison I was trapped in. I was surrounded, and I needed to find my way out.

Several years later, I met someone who barely started a twig fire. It's comparable to lighting a match, or lighting sticks on fire in your parents back yard as a child. It wasn't anything dangerous, and there's a very minute possibility any real damage will come from it. As we began seeing each other, the fire steadily grew. He tended it with such care, like it was his lifeline. He started these tiny little embers that he made sure never went out. This fire was everything to him. The fire was life or death, and he knew that while it may not be a raging, ruinous, holocaust, it would sustain him. The fire was his livelihood.

As a young girl, my Nana always told me, "Find someone who loves you, more than you love them. Your love can always grow, but finding someone who truly loves you is a once in a lifetime opportunity." I thought she was nuts. How could you be in a relationship with someone you didn't love? "Do you not love my Poppa?" I would ask her, completely bewildered. She would just smile at me and say, "Of course I do, but I will never love him as much as he loves me." Her words resonated in my head as I grew, but I never appreciated the gravity of what she was telling me, until I found him.

On our wedding day, his mother came to me and said something that brought all those talks with my Nana back to the surface. She said, "I have never seen him like this before. He truly loves you." I knew I loved him, but I would never go to the lengths for him like he did for me. I would always stay by his side, and support him in all of his endeavors, but he is the type of man to celebrate holidays, just because it puts a smile on my face. He is the man that will pick flowers on the side of the highway, just to see my eyes light up. He's the nutcase that will dance in the middle of the grocery store, just because I'm overwhelmed and feel like I'm about to fall apart.

My love for him may not be all consuming, it may not even be enough to singe the hairs on my arms, but it is warm, it is comfortable, and it is sustaining. It's cozy, familiar, and it is everything. When faced with a choice of an inferno, or a campfire, I hope you choose the campfire.