With Valentine's Day fast approaching, it seems appropriate to reflect on this thing called "love." How many girl-talks have I been a part of that have discussed and agonized over this topic? Seems like too many to count.

For those that are married, are in or have been in long-term relationships, perhaps the excerpt below will strike a chord:

"People get from books the idea that if you have married the right person you may expect to go on 'being in love' for ever. As a result, when they find they are not, they think this proves they have made a mistake and are entitled to a change - not realising that, when they have changed, the glamour will presently go out of the new love just as it went out of the old one. In this department of life, as in every other, thrills come at the beginning and do not last...
Let the thrill go - let it die away - go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow - and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life. It is because so few people understand this that you find many middle-aged men and women maundering about their lost youth, at the very age when new horizons ought to be appearing and new doors opening all around them. It is much better fun to learn to swim than to go on endlessly (and hopelessly) trying to get back the feeling you had when you first went paddling as a small boy." - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity


And of course, I am reminded of what seems to be a strange paradox:

"You cannot love a fellow-creature fully till you love God." - C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce