First, it’s a fresh-baked, beautiful piece of sourdough with softness at its core and a firm outer edge to protect it from the world. This was the love we had in the first year of our relationship, a man named Randall. He was vulnerable and cool. I was outgoing and weirdly optimistic. He wasn’t my type nor was I his and that was what felt so magical about it. We both became mesmerized by the level of love we had for one another. Then it began to slip softly into a state no longer filled with newness. I was less of a passionate, sexy stranger and more of a woman making brussels sprouts on a Tuesday night. He was more of a computer-geek with an annoying desire to be quiet in strange moments.
Next, it’s that two-day-old still good, less flavorful, ready-to-eat bread. It is still soft on the inside, but the outside has lost its buttery crunch in the same way as it was on that first day. He had so much knowledge and I gave him so much support. We leaned on one another for nourishment despite our oddities and imperfections. We learned to appreciate the flavor we both brought to the experience and found our way through the tougher parts. We reinvented our exterior to the world around us over and over and over again. We spread love and joy when we could. When our souls starved we lost pieces of what mattered. We always found ways to stay full, together despite the chaos of the world we existed in.
Finally, it becomes the bread you eat because it’s there. Now it is a different challenge that presents itself to the baker. Do you make bread pudding? Do you transform that bread from something stale into something magical? Or do you rip it up and feed it to the birds? Do you find peace in knowing another living thing could maybe appreciate it more than you could? That is the relationship of forever, not sexy and new. It is not fresh and soft, it is not a foreign recipe with lots to be learned. No. We know the recipe yet want to bake. We want to dress it up and reinvent it and experience the first moment all over again. But that takes effort and frustration and each person runs the risk of being left only with crumbs. So what do you do? Do you bake? Or do you quit?
Relationships are hard and like bread, can grow stale all too easily if we cannot see them with a newfound appreciation each day.
We must find ways to reinvent love or we are doomed to wind up feeding the birds the bread we couldn’t figure out how to transform.
Create something greater, something special, something new. We will.
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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.
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Photo credit: Unsplash
