A good friend once told me he didn’t believe in the necessity to marry because the heartbreak of losing your soulmate, after 50 years of marriage, wouldn’t be worth the lifetime of memories you shared together. I, however, disagree. I believe in a deep, abounding love. I believe in falling hard with no regrets. I believe in trying one hundred times over just to have one instance of success.

I can’t yet fathom the heart break one feels when their husband or wife dies because I haven’t yet been married for multiple decades. I can tell you, however, that life always moves forward. In the darkest and lowest places, you keep moving forward because that’s all you can do. You move forward for yourself. You move forward to keep finding and growing that love. You move forward because the life you’re living has meaning and giving up is never the option. You move forward through death, cancer and lack of success. You move forward when you don’t even know where you’re supposed to go.

I don’t know if I’ll ever have the opportunity to be married for as many years as award-winning couples, but I know I’ve loved in my life time and time again. Even to be in love for an instant, one week or say three years and counting, can stay with you much after that relationship of a once lit fire is reduced to a simple spark brought on by a faint smell or too long of a hug. Love hard. Fall hard. Fail. Get back up and try again. Learn from it and grow and keep pushing. What else are we alive for than to make some type of a lasting positive impact on someone?

Secret to a long-lasting and love-filled marriage: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/12/09/marriage/mWY0q5jU0mpoOO6dDMahfL/story.html

No matter what, it was worth it.