Do you believe me now?

With so much going on I've been told not to blog about anything personal. GO FIGURE. I start a blog in the Spring as an outlet for my angst, and my lawyers tell me to shut up! LOL! Well... I can still use it to highlight things I find important. And that's exactly what I'm going to do. =-) I think it's when you lose something that you find how important it truly is. Love is the most important thing in life. I'll be the first to admit that when I had it... I took it for granted. I thought that person would always be there, regardless of what was thrown at us in life. I've learned the hard way that it's usually not the way it works. It's been almost a year since I've been single and I've grown a lot. I'm hopeful that one day I might once again feel that twitter in my stomach, that anticipation of a telephone call, and the yearning to just see a particular someone's face. This past year has been so odd! With all the sadness I felt, all the changes in my health, and in my life... I've grown more in 12 months then I have in 40 years. Talk about an ass kicking 40th year! (I had it.)
My friend Fiona shared this blog entry this morning, and I fell in love with it. It's by this photographer named Brandon that walks the street of NYC and takes random pictures of people. Holding signs. This particular post caught my eye. I have friends that are dating new people, newly married couples head over HEELS in love, and friends that need to stop taking advantage of what they have actually have, and WAKE UP! I'm one of the unfortunate (and picky) ones that doesn't have that in my life. It's not hard to envy someone that has everything you once did. What sometimes IS hard to do is opening your eyes DAILY to appreciate the person in front of you. That sounds bitter, right? I don't think so. Life has a way of sweeping couples up... eating them alive, and sometimes it has a brilliant way of tearing them apart. Read this. Let me know what YOU think:

"Yesterday a very nervous girl stopped me on Broadway. "I always tell my boyfriend how much I love him," she said, "but he never believes me. I was hoping you could help me send him a message."
"On the blog?" I asked. She hesitated, then a

nswered: "Yes."

I told her I couldn't do it. "I'll take your photo and email it to you," I said, "but I can't share it." I explained to her that I have a hard rule about not photographing people who stop me on the street-- otherwise the requests would quickly become unmanageable.

In addition to this, I get so many emails from very young couples asking me to document their Greatest Of All Loves. They normally express their relationships in cinematic terms, saying things like: "It took me 15 years, but I finally found my soulmate." Or "Even though we go to different high schools, the strength of our love has allowed us to persevere through the hardship. Please take our photo."

I think I join the rest of the adult community in a little eye rolling, along the lines of: "Yeah, yeah, been there. Don't worry-- the hormones will level off." But while editing the girl's photo, I realized that I've probably been a bit too dismissive of these sentiments. Young love is a huge part of life. Sometimes it evolves into something steadier and longer lasting-- more often it doesn't. But few things have the power to consume us so completely.

So here's my tribute to that experience. To the recipient of this message: Your girlfriend really, really loves you."