Posted by Dan Ewert : 3/26/2002 01:11:00 AM (Archive Link)
It's been brought to my attention that most of my blogs have a somewhat negative tone. As a result, I'm posting a blog that's more positive. This concerns my best friend/fiancée, Anne. We've been together for three years now and engaged for five months. There's nobody I love more nor is there anybody more important to me. People often say that such and such person has changed them and it's true in my case. I still remember when I came back to college in the fall of '99. It was in the early summer of that year when I fully realized that I loved her. Quite a realization really. I had liked plenty of girls before her but never had I even approached the point of love. To have arrived at that milestone and to know that she had also come to it in relation to me was soul-shaking. There was somebody in my life about whom I cared more and was more concerned about than myself. I'm of the opinion that while many will put others above themselves, it is largely in isolated cases and in time-limited circumstances. The exception to this takes a religious experience or a romantic one. There are special relationships in which one is willing to change forever for another. True change from who or what they presently are. How one thinks, how one behaves, how one dresses. This isn't done to satisfy the other exclusively, but done in sacrifice to and for the other; done because of the sustained importantance and love of that person. Some is done consciously but much also takes place unconciously. The influence of one on the other and vice versa occurs over time. It's as if (analogy warning) there are two stones being rubbed against each other. There is friction and grinding, but over time, the two stones will fit together perfectly. So as I was saying, the special romantic relationship causes sudden change that the person is willing to be permanent not only for themselves but also for the other because they want to be with the other permanently. This was my case that summer. Getting back to the fall, I came back and many of my friends commented on how much I had changed in just three months. They all remarked that I seemed happier, freer, more open... just all around a more contented person. And they were right. The love of a woman and my love for her had wrought a change in who I was. Those changes are still ongoing and I'm delighted they are. For I know that as long they're occurring, my love is still strong, and that even when our personalities grind against each other, we're just trying to become that better matched. Anne, I love you.