Ring of Fire Gallery Canvas Print

The beginning of a new relationship is pretty great. But then again, you’re just two separate entities. Like bread and cheese. Cheese is good. Bread is good. Put them together and you have a cheese sandwich. Also good.

Johnny Cash said that love is a burning thing. It’s a thing that doesn’t get really good until you’ve gone through some fires together. That’s when you really get to know what you’re made of. You melt together and you become one. Have you ever tried to separate a grilled cheese sandwich? It’s not easy. And that is how it should be.

Combined, my parents and Kim’s parents have been married for over 90 years. They have struggled and endured many, many fires. But through it all, they have stuck together. Love is a choice. When disagreements emerge, a fight erupts, and feelings are hurt, Plan A is to work it out. There is no Plan B.

When you don’t burn the ships, there’s a very high probability that someday, you’ll use them to sail away from one another.

It’s true: once you get past the lovey-dovey stage of a relationship, and experience the fires that flare up when things get real, you will come out a little charred. But that char – the battle scars from a life lived together – add a richness, a depth, and a magic that a regular old cheese sandwich can only dream about.