In site news, the photo gallery is up and working. Currently only cruise pics are on display, but I promise more soon, new and old. Since my evenings are free now I might have some time to sit down and scan like a madwoman. ;) So we'll see what we get. The other cool thing you might not actually be able to see, I'm not sure. If you're using Mozilla or Netscape 7 and have tabbing enabled, then you should be able to see a cute little peach icon at the top of the tab. In an ideal world you'd see it up in the address bar too, but it's fussy. ;) In IE you might have to bookmark the site before you can see it, then it should show up in the address bar. (If you still see the Internet Explorer "e" icon in the address bar, try clicking on that, dragging it a little bit, and letting go -- that should bring up my peach.) If you can't see it, well, whatever. I can. It's neat. :)
So... back to my world. Thoughts today? Well, other than looking forward to going home (INCLUDING the car trip... if I took Joe with me wherever I went then I would always love car trips!)... not really sure. One thing about going home though... I do have to stop at Ryan's. Well, his mom's, but I'm 99% sure he's living there anyway. I've got to drop off his TV/VCR, which he left at our old apartment and I graciously rescued, figuring he might want it. :P Okay, so it's not really that big of a deal. I'll stop in for two minutes, leave the TV, and be gone. I'm just hoping it's not too weird.
Relationships are funny things. Sometimes you can't fathom how any one person can possibly make you so happy. It's mind-boggling. (Lately I feel this way a lot.) :) Sometimes it's just as mind-boggling that this same person can drive you so completely insane. Luckily I haven't had much of that with Joe yet. ;) But I know it'll come, sooner or later, it's bound to. The trick is not to dwell on it, when you're the frustrated one you just get it out and ideally the other person will take a look at what they're doing, think it through, evaluate your opinion, and make the necessary change (even if it's just to tell you to get over it). This is tough though. Sometimes you're so convinced you're right that you hang on to stupid things. Sometimes you don't evaluate their opinion quite the way you should. You really have to THINK and decide what's more important -- the other person, or the thing you're doing to drive them nuts?
It's got to be a give-and-take on both sides. I spent years deciding that Ryan was more important than other things. And that's not a BAD thing. I put our relationship first and I can really say that with certainty, even though a lot of the time while we were going out I kept HEARING otherwise. (From him, that is.) Anyway, I know that I did everything I could to keep us together. But like I said, it's got to be a give-and-take on BOTH sides. Not one side giving and the other side taking. What broke us up was him deciding that other things were more important to him than me. (In spite of what he kept SAYING, which was that he loved me, which was true, and that love is the most important thing, which is not true, at least not by his definition of love.)
So that brings me to an interesting question -- is love the most important thing? I just said it's not. So I guess we need to back up a step and define love. What is love? I'll give you Ryan's definition: love is a feeling you have toward another person, that they make you happy and you like being around them and you can't picture your life without them, and for that matter, you can't picture spending your life with anyone else. (Note: "Ryan's definition" isn't a specific definition that he gave, it's my interpretation of how he viewed love based on things he said and did while we were dating.) Using this definition, I can truly say that love is not the most important thing. You can have that "feeling" about anyone, regardless of whether they feel the same way. You can love Julia Roberts if you want to, a lot of people do, if you go by this definition. But she doesn't give a damn. Love is not what's important. That FEELING is not what's important. There's a lot more to it than just a feeling. I saw that. Ryan couldn't.
I define love a bit differently. To distinguish, I'm going to write LOVE all in caps so you know we're talking about my definition of LOVE. :) LOVE is more than just that feeling -- the feeling is there, for sure. But LOVE is a commitment you make, based on that feeling. When you LOVE someone, not only do they make you happy, but you want to make them happy. When you LOVE someone, and you can't picture your life without them, you do everything you can to keep them in it. You EARN the right to spend your life with them. (That sounds really snotty, but think about it, it's really true.) LOVE is an action. You do things. You do things for them, you do things with them, you do things you don't want to do sometimes because you know if you don't, you'll lose them. You give -- and they give back. That is LOVE. And LOVE is the most important thing. When things hit a low point, love won't get you through. LOVE will. LOVE is God's greatest gift to mankind. :) God doesn't just have some fuzzy feelings for us. He puts the effort in. Anyway, I don't want to preach a sermon here or anything. ;) All I'm saying is that LOVE is what we get from God, and that's what makes it so huge.
Well this has been long and rambly and not really new. Actually as blogs go this one's pretty much old news. ;) But, I promised something "deep" and at least the love vs. LOVE thing is deeper than me telling you how much I like the new sandals I bought last weekend, and listing all the things I want to do over my upcoming holiday weekend. :P I guess I'm just thinking about this because I have to see Ryan tonight and I'm not particularly looking forward to it. :/ Ah well. I was also looking at pictures earlier today, remembering different stuff. This is the hardest breakup I ever had, because it was the most serious relationship I ever left. So there are still some hard feelings leftover, on my part anyway. :P Not all the time. Just... things I wish I hadn't put up with. Things I don't want to go through again, ya know? I don't miss him. I don't look at pictures of us from our early days and get teary or wistful. *shrug* It's hard to explain. I'm so happy with Joe that you'd think I'd have forgotten about all that shit by now. But I guess sometimes, I see other couples, and I see elements of "me and Ryan" in them, and that's sad... so maybe if I get it out here, someone will read it, think about it, and stand up for themselves. Don't let yourself be a doormat. If you know you're doing everything you can possibly do, and you KNOW they aren't (no matter what they SAY), don't sit there and take it. Happiness is possible. I'm living proof of that. :)
Finally... it's 4:30 and I can leave! :P
I LOVE you Joe! :D
Happy Fourth of July everybody!