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How love is like BBQ chicken
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BBQ chicken wings, Megan Chromik
My husband and I have been married for almost two years. It has been a difficult transition in some ways, and wonderful in other ways. Getting to know another person intimately can take time.
When you struggle together it can actually bring you closer. Falling in love is one of the most fulfilling experiences we can have. It is exhilarating to meet someone, connect deeply, feel the great tide of all the loving feelings, and then realize that this is the right one for you. Sometimes it happens very quickly, sometimes it happens over a period of time. Those ‘ooshy gooshy’ romantic feelings can be overwhelming and wonderful.
But everyone who has ever fallen in love knows that at some point that high tide of romantic emotions will come back down and settle in. The charge that set you both on fire soon burns down and leaves you with hot coals. Just like a good fire. It starts out really hot and the flames burn high into the sky. Then over time, the hot flames turn into steady hot coals. In order to have a fire last for a while you have to have hot coals. Love does this, and it can be a deeply satisfying, lasting relationship.
I had some BBQ chicken recently. That first marvelous bite was all about the sauce, the skin on the outside and some tasty meat. And as I ate, the sauce disappeared, the skin disappeared and I was left with chicken underneath, the meat next to the bone. At this point I was enjoying the true authentic flavor of just the chicken. The fancy sauce was gone, and fat was gone. Then I realized that the good stuff is next to the bone. There are nutrients in the bone. Cooking chicken bones in a big pot with water makes a terrific soup stock. But to get to that part you have to give up the yummy BBQ flavor.
A love relationship is a lot like this. At first you have all the warm, fuzzy, exciting experiences of falling in love. And as time goes by you both go deeper with one another. These experiences may not resemble the intense passion of the beginning. But as you work on the relationship and grow together, sometimes through difficulties, the relationship changes. There is a deeper intimacy that can come through life’s struggles.
As the newness wears off, there is an opportunity to find a richer, more solid intimacy. When you make it past the sauce and into the real meat in the relationship, you find the strong nutrients that can make a relationship more sustaining. Just like the meat next to the bone on the chicken. Giving up the sauce doesn’t mean giving up the flavor. In a love relationship, it is the authentic, real life experiences that can make a relationship more meaningful.
So don’t dismay when the BBQ sauce of your love relationship has gone, look to the deeper, more intense flavor of the meat underneath. Perhaps you can make an amazing soup that will feed you both for a very long time. Enjoy.
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