The post It’s Been a Long Day (but Too Short Before Goodnight). first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

The post Marriage Isn’t Over After Kids. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

I wanted to call this article something “mature” yet catchy, like “When Sex Can’t Be the Band-Aid.”

My husband, however, suggested “From Ballin’ to Crawlin:’ Can Your Relationship Survive Without Sex?”

Because, the thing is—I’m not a “sex” writer.

Nope. I’m a mom, and a yogi, and a this and a that—but I don’t write about sex.

Except for now I do, and I will—about something that I believe fully in; about something that lately has been regularly reinforced as a serious truth in both my relationship and my life as a mother.

And here it is: an outright declaration that couples planning a family should find other ways to connect intimately, besides sex, before having kids.

Because all couples think they will be that special, magical couple who still has a hugely invigorating sex life, after kids.

There, I’ve said it.

Don’t worry, we all think this, or no kids would likely intentionally be made in the first place—if you like sex; which I do. So this, please consider, is also written from that standpoint. (I’m so sorry, Mom.)

Yet, it’s a universal joke for a reason: having sex with kids in the house is a whole new ball game—hahaaaa! Sorry again, but it’s a reality that we need to have other ways to connect.

Our kids learn to communicate from us.

Children see the way that their parents exchange differing opinions, the way that we hug, or don’t hug; the ways that we embrace—in words and arms and lips—in front of them.

Kids see everything.

But, as a couple, if our main way to reconnect and get close after a blow-out or a “discussion” is sex—then we’re in for potential trouble.

Sex can be an easy way out.

It can be a mind-blowing experience that we pretend means soul-mate love, or it can be a way for those of us who are otherwise well-matched to reconnect after a bad experience. Sex, though, is no longer the easy way out when you have kids.

Instead, it becomes planned (well worth it), or perfectly timed (again, well worth it) or ignored (ugh) or placed on the back burner (place it on the front burner of the schedule again).

Because, yes, sex should be something that we make important, and that we make time for—but, that’s a different article, no?—but trust me when I say that it cannot be the main way that couples engage in communication or play if the relationship is going to have longevity.

So what else can we do?

The following are a few suggestions for couples who want to get along well, so that they still want to have sex:

1. Talk.

I will not play the gender card here either.

Some people are more verbal and others are not, and I don’t believe this is a man or woman thing. Instead, it’s a hodgepodge of how willing we are to share, if words are the way that we show love, and likely, too, of how our families expressed themselves—etc, etc.

Yet, don’t misinterpret that we do need to talk through things. No—we need to talk through everything.

Get used to it.

If words are not your best form of expression, then consider writing down what you need to say. More, if you—like I—am an extremely…passionate—read: hot-tempered—individual, then consider occasionally sending an email that gets ideas across better than can sometimes be conveyed through conversation.

2. Hugs.

Hugging is hugely underrated. It helps forge a feeling of closeness and it also cuts through life’s tension that gets in the way of how we feel about our partners, if we could stop time and co-exist outside of work and child-rearing.

Raising children isn’t the only reason a relationship might go through a sexless or less-sex period. Illness and long distance are other possibilities—and my relationship has gone through all of these reasons.

I’ll never forget seeing my husband, then boyfriend, as I got off the plane to visit him across the country in New Mexico. I can still feel the sensations of his strong arms as they completely enveloped me, standing in front of him. That hug meant and said more to me about his love than any words could have. His hugs still make me feel wonderful.

In other words, hug it out.

 3. Listen.

Speaking of hugs being underrated, talking is also over-rated—listening is the new best thing.

Honestly, listening involves stopping our own thought processes and authentically being present with our partner, and truly hearing and taking in their experiences of both life and our relationship through life together. This is worthy of an article by itself.

Regardless, let’s all put on our listening ears.

4. Stay present.

I’ve been with my husband since we were 14 years old. In other words, it’s easy to re-hash the past. Don’t.

Stay here.

Stay current.

Trust me, I’m horrible at this.

I have an elephant’s memory and a sensitive heart, and it’s taken me years and years—echo after me : years and years—to learn, and repetitively understand, that while yesterday’s problem might still be today’s, it’s crucial to discuss what is happening now.

This is easier said than done, both externally and internally, so my suggestion (aside from professional help for recurring problems) is to:

5. Walk the fuck away.

Walk away.

When we cannot move mentally past a conflict or regroup ourselves for our best dialogue, then we need to walk away, cool down, internally reconfigure our feelings and then express them at another moment.

In short: Walk. The. Fuck. Away.

So, in closing, parenthood is glorious.

My blunt delivery of the aforementioned facts, that life after a child’s birth is when a relationship’s true challenge begins, might not completely display this.

Because, let’s be real: parenting is when a relationship becomes hard.

This is good! (I’m being serious.) Why stick with the same person if we can’t progress together as individuals?

Parenthood will progress a relationship automatically past go. (You may or may not collect $200.)

For me, becoming a mother has been the most difficult and mundane job I’ve ever performed. This distinct dichotomy is precisely why it’s such a challenge. More, marrying this arduous work with the man who I chose to spend my life with is honestly the most difficult thing that I’ve ever attempted—and it’s also the most important.

I love my husband.

Because of this I equally think that sex should be prioritized.

It has to be squeezed in between children’s bedtimes and when you don’t feel like it; in between long days at work and long days at home.

These tips will help couples to still feel romantic after long days of childcare and work.

Life isn’t easy; maybe yours is, but mine isn’t.

My life is, however, glorious—sometimes my eyes prick with tears from the beauty of watching my baby walk for the first time, or my husband talk to me about his job as a physicist or my oldest child write her letters all by herself.

It’s the little things in life that matter.

Talking, hugging, making love, listening—this is what we need to experience and enjoy with every ounce of our souls.

And sex? It’s huge. It’s important.

But it isn’t everything, or, more accurately—it doesn’t have to be.

Photo: Flickr/The First Couple…

The post 5 Tips: Can Your Relationship Survive Without Sex? first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

The sky outside the window where I sit sipping white wine and typing looks apathetic.

The outline of the trees is surrounded by a boring shade of white-grey instead of bright blue or a stack of neon as the sun tilts down the Western skyline.

I can imagine the fuchsia and fluorescent orange of the sky as we used to sit on the top of our favorite mountain in New Mexico when we were in college.

We backpacked up with plastic wine glasses that had stems that unscrewed and then folded neatly into teeny tiny little domes, next to two bottles of white wine and a few other things we had decided upon for dinner fare.

I can still feel my pounding heart and heavy legs as we hiked the last switchback to the top—the one that every single time I felt I could not get past.

But I always did—we always did.

My skin would later grow cold and clammy as the salty sweat evaporated; as the sun set lower, and the sky bruised purple and shades of citrus fruit. You would slowly and carefully unpack our dinner and camping gear, and I would act as your sous chef for all of it.

We would rip off hunks of food and talk. You would tell me your dreams. They usually involved something academic, which wasn’t shocking since we sat on that mountaintop primarily because you were getting your first Master’s degree at the school in the valley beneath it.

They also involved things that we would do together; landscapes that we would see; children we would meet—and, even though you knew that you wanted to thrive as a thinker and an athlete, the dream you wanted most was a family, with me.

I’m able to write this now because I have a rare moment alone. You fell asleep putting our oldest child to bed.

I tip-toed in to check on your progress as you read with her, and saw you both on your backs in an eerily similar position, sound asleep. Our youngest daughter was already asleep on my own shoulder after nursing. I decided quickly to close the door upon your supine figures and place the baby gently in her crib. I’m now looking at her on the monitor, where she’s resting in a strangely similar position to the one I hope to be in shortly.

And we got our wish.

We have two beautiful, kind-hearted, wild children. Sometimes, though, I wonder what happened to those two kids who sat on that moonlit mountain peak.

They’re still here—I’m positive of that.

They show up randomly, like when we crack horribly inappropriate jokes and when we kiss covertly as we cube zucchini in the kitchen.

They tickle my heart as I dream, and they still like riding with the moon roof wide open and the music spilling out the windows behind them and onto the hilly, country road.

They still like drinking wine underneath a starlit sky.

We sat on the front porch of our new house last weekend and I was surprised at the view of the stars.

I sat in the white rocking chair, in awe of the constellations for which I had no personal knowledge of a name—I sat in awe of the man who sat next to me, tracing my thumb with his fingertips, telling me about his too muddy bike ride on the trail that he currently rides, and of how much I love him but often cannot easily show.

Love is funny when you have children.

Everyone thinks that their love will be different and I often hope for them that they might be right. More often than not, however, we equally struggle to maintain a connection that exists beyond poopy diapers, car seats and school.

Romance is stolen kisses after bedtime instead of obvious weekend romps. It’s a favorite cut of meat picked up at the grocery store for the grill. It’s a slightly hurried kiss good-bye in between breastfeeding and child school drop-off. It’s work—and it’s worth it.

But sometimes it feels like work and not love.

Sometimes it feels unappreciated.

Yet the thing about marriage is that it does take work. Romance—that’s the easy part. Love—that’s fairly easy too. But loving someone day in and day out, with annoying personal habits and work and kids and life—that’s the kind of thing that can get old, fast.

But it doesn’t get old, with you.

We sat underneath stars on red-colored rocks on a mountaintop in New Mexico. Now we sit underneath these same stars in matching rockers on a porch in the state where we grew up, together.

We used to lie on a blanket in my parents’ front yard gazing up when we were teenagers—our location seems to change, but, somehow, the stars and our own hearts remain constant.

My rapidly typing fingers slow and slow and slow, and I stop writing (because the baby begins to wake—I can see her on the monitor sitting up and whimpering). I leave you to hold onto our daughter as she dreams.

I quickly undress and grab the baby and get into bed to nurse her back to sleep. I notice that the light has completely changed colors outside of the bedroom window, where I lie.

It isn’t apathetic anymore.

It’s not black and dark out yet, but it isn’t really light any longer either.

Instead, it’s ready to close upon one full day while not quite ready to contemplate a new one—that crisp part of the night when it could be easy to pour another glass of wine and stay up talking for several more hours rather than go to bed.

I’m happy to go to bed, but I wish it was with you.

Loving you never gets old. It changes. It evolves. Sometimes it’s more routine and work than romance and love, but that’s part of what I want. Because it’s true that nothing worthwhile comes easily. It’s true that love should feel natural, but it’s even more true that it requires a few trickles of blood—and salty sweat and tears.

I take off my glasses and set them on the nightstand. I roll to my left side and wonder what I’ll dream of.

The sky is now black. I force my eyes to shut; knowing in my heart that the struggles we currently experience are fleeting—just like your thesis and that last sweaty switchback up to where we’d always put our tent.

It dawns on me—on that contemplative space behind my closed eyelids—that the white-grey sky wasn’t boring or apathetic, but quiet and serene.

Love isn’t always fuschia sunsets.

We want to be exposed to the quickly beating hearts, but hop over the tiring switchbacks that make them pump.

The best part of backpacking with you was that our hearts would labor together. Salty sweat would drip down both of our foreheads, and then simultaneously, similarly we would share the space afterward when everything was calm again.

And right now might be pureeing apples for the baby and shuttling another kid to school, and tag-teaming so that we can both get workouts in that day, but I wouldn’t want to live my life with anyone else and I wouldn’t want my life to be any different.

I love you fuschia.

I love you florescent orange, neon blue and shades of purple and grey.

I love you evening luminaries. I love you mornings when the sky decides to dump rain.

And I know that when the stars are covered up with clouds, that they’re still there, shining brightly and beautifully—it’s just that they’re temporarily hidden from our view.

And I’m okay with that—it’s not that I’m apathetic.

I’m just alright with the white-grey, sunset heartbeats in between the neon fuchsia passion.

Photos: Author’s own; Flickr/Simon Greening.

The post A Fuchsia Love Story. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

It all began with my four year old, really; this lesson that we cannot expect more from someone than they can give.

The thing is, that sometimes I forget she’s four.

She’s kind and she’s beautiful, and these two things are much beyond the measure of her lifespan.

This said, I can’t expect more from her than she’s capable of giving—and this goes for all people.

We all have people who challenge us.

Sometimes it’s childish temper tantrums, sometimes it’s spouses and sometimes it’s co-workers. Regardless of the nature of our relationships, we need to regularly consider that it’s not possible to expect a person to be someone who they are not—with a favorable outcome at least.

I re-learn this lesson over and over. Partly this is because I married a man my opposite; in every way that’s incredible, he’s nothing like me.

I’m horridly anal retentive and, “Put the wine glass over there; on that table; more than two inches in; where the children can’t get it…No! Not near that corner where my clumsy elbow will knock it.” You know…that kind of anal.

He’s adorably slow at making coffee in the morning.

It’s a running joke.

But the kind that’s not entirely funny because it’s too true. That kind of running joke. Anyways, I make coffee at lightening speed (given that I don’t believe in drip pots or microwaves) because I need it that badly. (I seriously mentally envision two fingers tapping a vein in the morning while simultaneously hearing Barney from The Simpsons’ voice, “Hook it to my veins!”)

So he’s slow at making coffee and Every. Single. Stinkin.’ Morning. I, like, expect him to make coffee quickly. Only he doesn’t. So I make it, but then I’m internally angry that I make the coffee every morning—only I make it because he’s “too slow.”

While I’m aware that this is easily becoming the longest example ever, I think the point is relatively simple: expecting a person to be someone who they are not is upsetting to all involved.

On the other hand, people will surprise you.

My husband’s grandpa once said this and, for me, it’s proved entirely true.

The “best” friend that I thought, through everything, would be there for me…wasn’t.

Likewise, other friends have unexpectedly come through.

Isn’t life funny?

Isn’t it strange how people can surprise us, again and again?

Sometimes, too, I have this thought that I want my parents to live forever and that it’s not okay they’re getting older.

I try to picture losing my mom the way she’s already gone through losing hers and…I can’t. I see the way she envelops my children—as if she bore them herself—and I then try to picture my children losing her, the way that I already did my own grandmother and…I can’t.

Yet life has a system.

We are not meant to last forever. We are not meant to be there for every single friend who needs us. We are not meant to be perfect.

And the way my husband makes coffee, ultimately, doesn’t matter—it has no bearing on how he is as a person and says nothing of how wonderful he’s been as a partner.

Still, this cyclical experience of his consistently slow coffee making reminds me of when we lived apart and how I missed the way he always left his pants lying on the carpet in our family room after coming home from a long day—where I tripped over them every time I came home, wondering why on earth he couldn’t put his pants in the bedroom instead.

Because, fundamentally, our flaws are what make us lovable (to the right people), and, sometimes, we need to extend this kindness even more and recognize that we cannot expect more than we can give either.

Every single morning I have peanut butter toast.

I smear two slices of toasted bread with nearly an inch of natural peanut butter. This and two coffees make me not despise the world again. I am not pretty, or even able to speak in full sentences, until these items are inside of my stomach. But my husband knows this, he lets me eat my toast and drink my coffee and he doesn’t pass unkind judgment on me in the middle.

He’s a happier person than I am.

He’s a happier person in general because he knows that I need messy toast and hot, brown water to be my best Jennifer. Every day I wake up and I want to be more like him.

I want to be more like someone who understands who a person is, what a person needs and then lets them be that.

This said, there are times when we can see the people we know and love with more clarity than they can see themselves.

Life, as I’ve lived it at least, has ups and downs and there have been several times when my husband, for instance, was my reminder of what I’m capable of—because I had lost sight. This isn’t the same, though, as holding someone to unfair standards.

Additionally, just because we accept an individual for who he or she is—limitations and all—this doesn’t mean that we have to settle for these qualities when they don’t mesh with our own needs.

Learning to see a person for what they are capable of, rather than for what we wish they were capable of, is not the same as lowering our own needs to meet another person’s abilities.

This is a fancy way to say that sometimes we need to accept what someone can offer us—and then turn it down.

And this is exactly what would make me happier: to accept where I am in my own life and then go from there.

Because how can I move forward and into my best me if I don’t clearly see where my feet stand, now?

Further, to surround ourselves with people who hold us to what we can do, to ask us to achieve more greatly when they know we are able and, more, to understand that love also includes not using our flaws against us—this is who we should be taking into our lives and into our hearts.

This is what would truly make us all happier: to see a world as it is, to accept it, to find where we can better it, to understand where we cannot—and to wake up every single stinkin’ morning not expecting fast coffee from a slower pourer; to remember we are human and to celebrate this, mourn it and then help one another be the best versions of ourselves.

Photo: Flickr/A.M.

The post We Can’t Expect More from Someone than They Can Give. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

If I promised not to hurt you, would you trust me forever?

Or is human trust only meant to go so far?

My love for you exceeds words, even though I believe I’m very capable of them.

My love for you is, in part, felt as deeply as the snow falling outside because you accept that I am hugely flawed.

I am enormously flawed.

I yell at you when I want deeply to grab your face and kiss you, but can’t because we have two kids and one is needing to nurse and the other wanting to play puzzles.

I hurt you, time and time again.

When we were kids and young-love dating, the wounds were not as deep but they felt like it because we were 14 and less biologically evolved to deal with it.

When we were adults, I realized, finally, that who we are would never be who we have the capacity to be—that is the ultimate flaw of being human.

But I would never hurt you, even though I hurt you all the time.

I’m a total asshole in the morning before my coffee. I’m a complete lunatic when I’m hungry, and the stress of life lately has been difficult for me to bear.

But what if I promised never to hurt you?

What if I promised always to love you; your heart; your body; your mind?

What if I promised you that every time I’ve affected you, it was my own self that was defected and not your own? Would it help to lessen the blow?

And what if I told you that I’ll always hurt you?

I’ve recently been meditating in my yoga room and working on dealing with the depression that has followed our glorious baby’s birth—but I am not now, nor will I ever be seamlessly ideal.

I sit in meditation and I feel reverberate throughout my body the perfection of my soul; of space; of me—and then I walk out from the room and back into reality and I’m gigantically imperfect once more.

Yet what if I promised to always love you, even if I hurt you?

Would you believe that I don’t mean to; want to; avoid to?

Because I will hurt you, even though the thought makes my spirit wretch.

And I do love you—over and over again, and time and time again and more than words can share—because you love me, especially my flaws—and I love you and yours.

Photo: Author’s own; Flickr/Handshake man-woman.

The post If I Promised Not to Hurt You. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

We were sitting at the dinner table when I first noticed the fine lines around his eyes.

I noticed how they splayed from the outer corner, up to his eyebrows and down to the upper-most part of his cheeks.

I felt the tears spring to my own eyes.

I counted them: one, two, three, four, five (like my daughter counting on her fingers)—and I felt lucky to have been a small part of those lines.

I’ve been there through our 14-year-old-concert-in-Detroit days—those moments in our high-school lives when seeing our favorite indie bands was heart-crashingly important and special.

I’d been there through saw-him-move-across-the-country hours—those days that led up to his move to New Mexico for his first Master’s degree, when every day felt soft around the edges and painful-slash-crisply beautiful because he was leaving me for several months until I joined him.

We’ve been together through more life moments than I can count (one, two, three, four, five…) and those lines—in that one perfect instant at the dinner table—those lines said so much.

They said, “I love you,” “I hate you,” “I need you,” “I want you,” “you are me,” and so many others.

And these tiny, little creases in our softest of skin—that we can some how, perversely, see as imperfections—made me smile as the salty tears pricked the backs of my eyes.

I smiled with the knowledge that our current days, of our marriage becoming secondary to our children, and our exercise time never feeling quite like enough, and our lives moving so fast that these lines could be perceived as something to mourn rather than celebrate—I smiled, knowing that all of these life-pieces are temporary, and I teared up because this is both beautiful and devastating.

And I look at the creases of his eyes, as he tilts his head back and roars with laughter at something I’ve said, and I hope in the deepest crook of my heart that there are many more lines to come.

Photos: Author’s own; Flickr/Philip Bitnar.

The post Why I Fell in Love with His Smile Lines. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

Love isn’t static.

It swirls around you like balmy air sent up from the south.

The wind catches your hair, and a few strands stick in the moist crease of your lips. You reach with your hand to move it, but you don’t have to because he gets there first and brushes it aside.

He gently touches your cheek with his slightly coarse fingertips (from working on his bikes in the garage).

You look up into his eyes (he doesn’t have to tilt your chin to him with his hand because you’re assertive enough to move yourself), and your shared gaze lingers a beat past your comfort zone—and in that moment you learn a lot.

You learn that you’re vulnerable, and that you need him—and you think you saw that he’s not as afraid of this as you are.

He’s not afraid to be vulnerable, because he’s naturally confident and understands his emotions much better than you know you’ll ever understand your own, and it’s not because you don’t want to be raw and open and accessible—it’s just because you’re scared.

What are you afraid of?

Are you afraid that he’ll hurt you?

No, that’s not it.

Are you afraid that he’ll leave?

No, he’ll never do that.

Are you afraid of death?

Partially. That’s the only way he would walk away from you, and you both know it.

Yet, that’s still not it.

But you know it’s this fear that makes you pull away‚ that encourages you to fight with him when you don’t even want to (when there’s nothing really to fight about).

And tears are streaming down your face, but you’re not sure why.

Maybe it’s because you yelled at him this morning when he didn’t deserve it. Maybe it’s because you know that you were wrong, that you’re needy and hot headed—and that this combination is unstable.

Maybe you’re afraid because you know that you aren’t stable without him, that you need him, because without him the ground is too shaky to walk on.

And it’s scary to need someone to hold you—and sometimes carry you—across that trembling surface.

It’s unnerving that in this huge, whole world there’s only one person that you want to hold your hand, and that if he wasn’t there to kiss your cheek and gently stroke your thigh right before you both fall asleep together, that this world would fall apart, that you would fall apart.

Because you’re strong.

You’re aggressive—but that was a lie. He often has to pull your chin up, and then he has to force you to look him in the eye, because you look away.

Sometimes it feels easier to look away and pretend that you’re whole enough without him—and maybe you are…enough.

And now the tears are dripping down your nose and falling into the crease of your lips and he’s not there to reach over first and dry them because he’s already gone to bed—he was too tired tonight to deal with your moods.

And you’re sorry.

You’re sorry that you screamed, and you’re sorry that you lied (with your eyes and your cocky stance) because you do need him.

He’s the air that you breathe. He’s the water that you drink. He’s the hole in your heart where it aches after you’ve hurt him.

Your heavy tears splash onto your keyboard and you get up for a tissue, but settle instead for a napkin because you can’t see anymore and the tissues are all the way down the hall (and besides, you don’t want to walk past the bedroom and wake him up).

But it’s okay. Soon you’ll crawl into bed after you’ve turned off the light that he kept on for you, waiting.

And in the morning he’ll reach over and touch your cheek and caress your thigh where he didn’t get to the night before.

And he knows that you lied to him (with your angry words and your haughty heart), because to him you’re see through.

He knows that he’s your world because you’re his too—and that’s enough.

Photo: Flickr/I Will Never If You Never; Flickr/The Fisherman and the Syren.

This article was first published by elephant journal.

The post I’m Sorry I Love You Too Much. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

My four-year-old daughter just schooled me on a puzzle.

To be honest, I’m not spatially oriented at all and hate puzzles.

That said, she gave me a funny look as she corrected me; putting the odd wooden shape where it really goes.

And people are not pictures.

I observe so many people wanting to cram others’ eccentricities and personalities into even smaller packages than a carefully wrapped Christmas gift.

We want so badly for people to fit a certain mold or image that we forget who they really are and what they’re really capable of.

We want so much for a parent, or a child, or a sibling or a friend to fit into the same-sized shape we’ve already seen made—in our imaginations or at another person’s house down the street or on t.v.—that we don’t see who’s right in front of us and in our lives.

In so many ways my daughter reminds me of my husband.

She’s a constant reminder for me that people are not “man” or “woman,” but individuals who think and move and just are a certain way—their own way.

She handed me this tiny wooden shape—the same one I had just set down in the right corner of her brand-new puzzle—and cocked me a look that wordlessly said, “Mom, you seriously have no idea where the hell this goes?”—as I slid the piece back “into place,” where I had already put it, where it belonged, where my brain had wanted it to go.

But it didn’t go there.

She was right, and I realized this a few beats later as I told her what a good job she had done to know that this puzzle piece went “over there,” in the left-hand corner.

More, she reminded me that I’m not always (or even usually) “right” while other people (especially those I love) are “wrong,” simply because we view the world differently; because our pictures are composed of differing landscapes.

We are not pictures of what other people want us to look like.

Some of us marry, and some don’t.

Some of us have and want kids, and others not so much.

Some of us are religious and others shun religion.

Yet this idea of “the other” is left behind completely when we choose to witness and then accept who is right before us, whether I’m choosing to accept and love myself or my child (or my sister or my friend).

We are all truly unique and not meant to be cut down to fit a certain size and shape, because that’s what trying to cram a person into a prefabricated mold does—it cuts them down.

We cannot recognize and honor who an individual is if we don’t see him or her for who they already are.

And I don’t want to be a vision, but an artist—I want to create my own canvas with my own wild selection of paints.

I don’t want to be a director, but a performer and a willing participant of the audience.

I want to look upon people with gratitude while they look upon me, thinking, “that’s not what I expected, but she’s beautiful nonetheless.”

And I want to admire the people who make up the pieces of my life so that, much like my daughter’s puzzle, the picture winds up beautiful and absolutely incapable of being whole without the rest of its seemingly mismatched parts.

Photo: Flickr/Bodenpuzzleln.

This article was first published by elephant journal.

The post People Aren’t Pictures. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

Okay, maybe not over-rated.

But the definition for romance, in my opinion, is usually all wrong.

Romance looked completely different to me when I was 25 than it does now at 35.

At 25, romance was frilly and came in tiny packages with red ribbons.

Romance, at 25, contained mostly things I’d learned from fairy-tales—from actual story-books as well as from my own young-woman imagination.

Romance was what I would name my children and what I would get for my first wedding anniversary from my new husband.

Romance, in short, was pretty.

Today, at 35, romance is not always practical.

At 35, romance can still be attractive, but, much like myself, it’s gotten the addition of a few smile lines—things that make the packaging look a little bit worn and loved, even if not yet tattered and forgotten.

Because romance at 35 is less idealistic—it’s less little-girl creation and more woman’s heart-food.

Grand, princely gestures have been replaced by tokens of simple appreciation—things like doing laundry and getting the ingredients for my favorite dinner on the way home from work.

And while romance is surely alive and kicking, it’s often found dressed in fun, cotton leggings rather than taffeta dresses.

This recently came up on a car ride with my sister.

I mentioned to her that I think women can get themselves into trouble when looking for charming, dashing suitors instead of actual partner material.

Partner material doesn’t always pull your chair out at restaurants—although that’s not to say that women don’t deserve to be treated this way.

Still, partner material is someone who has a career that motivates his or her daily life, someone who strives to take care of himself both in body and in mind, and partner material can be romantic, absolutely, but partner material might occasionally have to work late or prefer to eat in.

Because romance and charm, while attractive, are also somewhat of a shiny veneer that, frankly, can be a false, sirenic echo of what actually lies beneath—hidden and untrue.

The other thing that I told my sister was that, often, I’ve found pointy, jagged personalities underneath such sparkly armor.

This isn’t to say that all charming, charismatic people are dissatisfying.

No, my husband is sweet and thoughtful and gentlemanly—and also a genuinely kind person.

My daughter, too, is the most charismatic person I’ve ever been privileged to meet—and she, equally, is the kindest human I know.

Regardless, charm wears thin when not matched with soul; not coupled with purpose; not paired with an earthy, willing personage that seeks the same things beyond appearing wondrous from the outside.

We are more than body.

We are more than cute dinner conversation and fun weekend outings.

We are people who have jobs and extended families and things that complicate our lives and make us not imperfect, but who we are and what makes us special underneath our work clothes and smiling Facebook pictures.

And partner material wants what it would never posted on Facebook.

Partner material will laugh when you call out bathroom/social media interaction—and nickname it “Facepooping.”

Partner material will hold you after you’ve been hurt by someone who you think should care.

More, partner material will want romance with you, of course, but they are prepared and ready for the reality and rigors of daily living.

The older I get, the more I discover that life is not easy.

I think life is hard.

This isn’t to say that I don’t find joy coupled with sorrow and all of the typical yin-yang aspects of our world. But I do think that life can be hard and I’m only 35.

So, yes, I’m glad that I chose someone who is romantic—someone who tells me I’m beautiful, but because he believes it and means it and not because he knows that it should come out of his mouth.

Do you want to know what I received for my first anniversary?

A gym membership.

A membership that I used to make me strong and that I used to help me deal with the stressors of life and of the first few years of our marriage, because those aren’t always easy and story-book romantic either.

So, as I drove to the grocery store with my sister in the passenger seat and my two children screaming for different reasons behind us, I felt lucky, and I felt loved.

Because, at home, was a guy cooking dinner for our return. At home was a guy working on his truck. At home was a guy who loved me, through better or for worse, through sickness and in health.

In health, romance is pretty—it’s also terribly unprepared for when “worse” hits if it doesn’t want to be there.

I crack my knuckles and look at the mother’s ring I bought for myself after giving birth two months ago. (My new baby is asleep on a pillow in my lap as I write this; my oldest daughter and my Prince Charming are at the grocery store, likely buying my favorite dinner ingredients.)

And maybe the life of you, dear reader, doesn’t involve children or cooking and that’s fine.

But my suggestion is to take a look at what life does idealistically—prettily—look like and then find someone who fits there, alongside and looking out at the landscape you want to till and harvest.

Because that’s where partner material lives: shoveling manure and planting trees, as well as in admiring the view.

Photo: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers/Flickr.

The post Why Romance is Over-Rated. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.