Is love adorable?

What did you think of my story?

You haven’t answered me. Did you read the comments? Were they right, is love cute? Is the photograph of us on the hill as kids truly adorable? I don’t think so.

Maybe you disagree. Maybe you treasure those old memories the same way that you might enjoy taking the kids to the top floor of a tall building and showing them how to crush people on the street below with your thumb and forefinger.

You can’t really do any damage, you know.

The photograph on the hill captured the start of our love. Imagine it as a delicate wrought iron cage, its door left open to let the birthday guests run back inside for cake. Nothing is really locked up yet, just held loosely.

Years pass with the cage door still open. You even escape for a while, leaving me light and wondering. Can you believe that I desperately asked myself, at twelve, if anyone would ever really love me? The answer was always there, a little clue tucked inside my photo album.

At nineteen, when you brought me flowers on my birthday, you were not shy. You snuck up on me quietly in the rain and stashed those flowers inside the cage. I didn’t even notice you slip the door closed.

At twenty-one, you brought me a puppy wrapped up in your shirt and while I was playing with him, you used the new leash to tie up the cage door. You were not shy.

At our private, sunset engagement party, you were bold. You asked the question as if you already knew its answer. You dead bolted the cage with my diamond ring, and I was thrilled to be inside with you.

Now that we are older, the cage is getting full. It’s cluttered with tombstones and birth announcements. Adventures are falling out, littering the floor underneath. The mess has made us both shy, wary. Inside the cage, we stoop down and flip through the pages of our photo albums, searching for that one reminder of what we both really are.

Only the photograph on the hill doesn’t really exist. I made it up.

Is love adorable? I don’t think so.

14 thoughts on “Is love adorable?

  1. Pheww !! Sighs….. Your first post was adorable and second one is more adorable. Loved it…so simply told and yet so pure. Yes Love is adorable…Yes it is !

  2. Your description is adorable. For adults, love is messy and complicated, at least if you’re doing it right. I agree with those commenting – photos of six year olds who grew up and got married are adorable, like those black and white photos where someone colorized only the flower that the little girl is holding

    When I look at that photo, I see I’m smiling, though it wouldn’t have surprised me at all if I had buried my face in my hands. Even now, 30 years later, walking around a room full of people I don’t know, I find myself smiling only when I’m standing in the back row.

    I'm in back, Christi is in front and to the left with her head tilted

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