Friendship, then love

Love is … I suppose there may be as many ideas as there are couples on how to finish that phrase. But in my 74 years of life I have stumbled and changed my ideas on what “love is” several times. How do you really know when you are in love? I believe that you think you know when you are in love based on your own life’s history, what you have read, or what you have been told. But how do you really know you are in love when you don’t know what it feels like?

Well 34 years ago I found the love of my life! How do I know? When I first started dating Patty we were dating other people as well. But every time I got in my car to go and see her, I simply had a big grin on my face. She is fun to be with. She has a great sense of humor. She is intelligent. We generally agree on politics, religion, financial responsibility, hiking, snowshoeing, and living a healthy lifestyle. We truly respect each other. We talk things out when we disagree, we don’t argue. We truly enjoy being together. We became good friends and then fell in love. Sure we still have other friends, but we each became the friend that we most wanted to be with — BFF!

So my advice, marry your best friend!