Make Love, Not War

Lately, I've been witness to a number of my friends' relationships falling apart. Marriages ending, couples breaking up after years together, and then my own recent upset. It seems like everywhere I turn someone else is falling out of love. It makes me wonder what happened to the days when people were more prone to work at getting back to the core of what made them fall in love in the first place and rediscover each other again instead of just calling it quits at the first sign of trouble. Love is not easy. It's hard. It's a whole lot of work, but nothing worth it ever comes without some struggle, otherwise you wouldn't appreciate the good of it as much. At least that's how I see it. When it comes down to it, if two people truly love each other and both of them want to make it work, then it will. It's as simple as that. Life is hard. Your partner should be your best battle buddy to fight through the hard times with, not an additional source of strife. Everyone makes mistakes, but it takes a lot more courage to forgive and move forward than it does to just play the blame game and take off. You learn from your mistakes and you move on. Let the past go. You can't change what happened, but you can take away some knowledge from the experience and make the future better for you both. I've made my lion's share of mistakes and gave up on relationships, too but I really didn't understand a lot of the things about love and life that I do now.

My Grandparents were married for over 60 years. My Grandmother dropped out of 10th grade to marry my Grandfather in the early 40's and I'm sure they dealt with many hard times, especially since they had 4 children as well. They  were in their 80's and still in love. I'm sure they pissed each other off from time to time, but at the end of the day, when it came down to it, they literally couldn't live without each other. My Grandmother died in June of 2002. My Grandfather was heartbroken and even though he had beat cancer numerous times, he deteriorated quickly without my Grandmother and passed away just one year later in July of 2003. I want to know where that kind of love is today. Does it still exist? I'd like to believe it does and that one day, that will happen for me, too.