The following entry was written by Captain Mom of Captain Me Planet.

Love is...love is. Love is...What is love? It is not moonlit nights, or Godiva truffles. Or the first kiss, and mad making out. Love is not presents, sharing fine champagne and gazing into each other's eyes. Love usually isn't pretty and wrapped with a bow at all. Love is an action. A making a choice to follow through even when, and especially if, you. don't. feel. like. it. At all. It's leaving everything you've ever known, to be with the one you chose. The one to whom you committed. Love is giving up pieces of yourself, if they are harmful to the oneness being created from you, and your other. It is accepting the icky pieces of your other, until he can give them up, too. It is understanding that there is no happily ever after, the way they describe it in Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty. The happily ever after looks a whole lot more like high fiving each other on your tenth anniversary because dammit, you made it! And want to keep going.

Love is accepting and trudging through the times that really stink. And not saying I told you so, but instead, just holding and murmuring little lovies when the crap hits the fan, after you've warned it will. Love is sharing the only bathroom in the house when your both spewing from each end, and not complaining about the smell. Love is cleaning up the little chunks, when your husband chooses the wicker trash can in which to yarf. Loving is eating Italian over and over when your favorite ever food is Mexican. Love is knowing your husband saw you poo when you tried with all your might to push that baby out, and his not telling you he saw, because he knows that even in that moment, you'd be mortified. And 8 years later, neither of you have spoken of it. And love is holding my hand, when you want to pass out, as the doctors lift the organs out of my uterus to make room to get to the baby. And love is most definitely not just walking out on one of those endless, forever and ever nights we didn't sleep, and thought we never would again, because that big-headed baby would not stop crying. And love is not taking that screaming baby to the edge of the neighborhood, and slinking away, just hoping, please God, now let us sleep. When some nights, we wanted to. Love is telling me my hoo-hoo doesn't look so much like a cabbage anymore, 2 weeks after trying to push fat baby out, even though I knew, it did. And in these revelations of what love really is, our hearts exponentially increased in capacity, to points past bursting, as we discovered depths of love we couldn't know existed. Until the children.

It is the agonizing over every tiny detail. Is he still breathing? Is he getting enough milk? Is his little brain being stimulated properly? It is crying over him during the first throw up bug he ever got, aching for his discomfort. Love turned out not to be the moment I finally got baby and me in our matching overalls, like I had dreamed I would, and out to Home Depot for spring annuals. Rather it was in many, many moments of surviving day after day after day, during which the baby had to be worn to sleep. And was worn while I went to pee, or vacuum, or slept sitting up, as not to disturb him. Love was when we realized we had the capacity to do it again, and again, and eventually
become a family of 5, even though we had begun to get an inkling of the sacrifices involved, not the least of which, was my breasts. The breasts that bared the nipples that became shredded, oozing and scabbed, while I did what I thought was best for the babies I loved. Love is driving a really old mini-van. And buying the better clothes for the children. And wearing the stuff I've had for a decade. And really not caring. It is the endless cycles of laundry, and forever sentence in the kitchen. And wiping the bum of your 5 year old, because he just doesn't get it yet. Love is my husband driving the old truck without air conditioning, in southern Georgia, in the summer, so I can have the comfortable car. And taking jobs he may not like, because he wants us to be safe, secure. Love is sometimes giving a little nookie when you're not really in the mood, because he is. And love is not pursuing a little nookie when you really want to, because she really doesn't feel like it. And love is shutting it all down, when you both want a little nookie, because a child has a bad dream, and needs to crawl in bed and snuggle down between the two of you. And somehow, you both still feel satisfied.

Love is the every day, in and out, ordinary and sometimes really sh*tty parts of life, but doing it together. And being glad to do it together. Even if you don't feel so glad in some moments. It's deciding to stay in on your 13th anniversary because you've both committed to keep to your budget, and retire the debt you racked up in the earlier, less informed, years. And making a celebration of out some cheap wine, and a couple of inexpensive steaks. And each other. It is committing to look outward together, and share a vision. And ignoring the graying hair, sagging stretch marks, tired nipples, and even thinking you are each more beautiful today than the first day you met. Not just thinking it, but really feeling it. It is knowing you won't give up on each other. Love is really not about anything society sells as love, but everything other worldly, unable to be bought or bartered. It is thinking of someone else before your self. Love is not quitting, but instead, arising each day, with the hope of what's ahead. Love is working toward the finish line, together.