A Lot Like Love

I’ve been married for almost a year now. For those of you who are depressed, love may not come as easily as it does for some people. But one of my good Catholic friends told me that love is a decision. That goes against everything that society tells us about love. I am an avid watcher of romance movies and romantic comedies. And in these movies love is inseparable from passion and sex. But being passionate about anything in life when you are depressed is hard. I know. I’ve been there. But being married has shown me what true love is. It’s not something that can be captured on the big screen. It’s truly exemplified in what Jesus said – to love you must be willing to lay down your life for your spouse. That is hard in a world in which being ego-centric is looked so highly upon. And it’s hard when you are stuck in your own head, in your own crazy world. But it’s not impossible. For me, true love meant being able to give up my feelings of depression, to work through them so that I could look out of myself and see my husband. At first it was a struggle, and I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have married in the first place. Maybe I was too sick to be with someone else. But my husband was patient. He stood by me through my dark nights. And there were many dark nights. But with prayer, a little bit of good therapy!, and time, things slowly started getting better. Now I can look at those movies and see them for what they really are – fantasy. They aren’t real life. Not even close.