how we met - 6

I decided to write a record of what I remember about my early relationship with Tyler.  I am already forgetting so much, and I want to capture as many of the memories as possible.  I also want my kids to be able to read it, when and if they ever become more curious about it.  I know Tyler would tell it differently, but to me, this is how we met  -

part .5 here
part 1 here
part 2 here
part 3 here
part 4 here
part 5 here





Love is a choice.

I chose love when I decided to date Tyler.  I chose love when I moved back from Utah for him.  I chose love when we got engaged.  I chose love on a hot morning in Mesa when we were sealed together for time and all eternity.

Tyler and I have both made the choice to love each other over and over again, and a million times since then.  It's not all romance, but it is all beautiful and real and good.

I compromised my false ideals when I knelt across from him and held his hands that morning we were married.  I gave up some of the incredible naivete I had about what love is, and chose that man, that imperfect yet wonderful, flawed, sincere, conflicted, truly good man.

We looked at each other that morning with love.  With excitement and hope and nervousness and humility, but most of all with love.



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Our early days were great and terrible.  I had been told that the first year was the hardest, and I clung to that - the hope that things could get better - as we navigated what it meant to be married.  I was ready for marriage.  Prepared for it.  But Tyler was so young inside, still.  It was hard for him.  

There is something great about growing up together.  It's how the two of us truly became family, forever more inseparable. We were tied together by it all.  We chose to love each other, and as we chose it, because it wasn't easy or dreamy all the time, our love grew stronger and stronger.

To say we've had our challenges is to minimize many experiences, but it's the best way I have to honor where we are, who we are as a couple.  This, where we are now, these days, is what I thought all those years ago that love was.  That, but infinitely deeper, infinitely better.  There's real hard-earned respect on both our parts, real generosity and adoration and goodness.  

Every day, every hour, every minute we choose to love each other still.  We have seen love end.  We choose not to let it.  We depend on each other, sustain each other, inspire each other, encourage each other.  We forgive.  We let things go.  Sometimes big things, sometimes little things.  Truly let them go.

We are not the perfect couple, but the couple that made a choice.  The choice to love.





the end.