When was the last time you told a person you loved them? Did you mean it? Because too often, I hear this phrase used, abused and thrown around like it was nothing.

I love you is easy, what you do to show the person you really do, is what’s difficult. Relationships, and keeping them alive in the real world with minimal tragedies, are a measure of patience, honesty, and compromise.

Sure we read about the great tragedies of Romeo and Juliet. We dream of the Noahs of the world that will love us even through Alzheimer’s (The Notebook), the Henrys that will make us fall in love with them every single day because we can’t retain short term memory (50 First Dates), and the Mr. Bigs that will run to Paris to win us back from Russians that don’t know what we’re worth (Sex and the City), but who will write about the daily lives and the normal things that people go through, and the tough life it can be when everything is just normal?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in a bad place, I truly am in a great one, but when people wax poetic about their “epic” love stories because they had to go through “obstacles” and “complications” I just shrug and say we all have our issues to work through. People get complacent, they forget about being there, things fall apart simply because you’ve gotten too comfortable and forget about the other person in it.

Love is a state that will always have ups and downs, and it’s your decisions in life that will point the direction of where it’s going to go, and your choice where to channel it.

I’m not a psychologist, or a relationship expert in any way, but from the time I was carefree and single to where I am now, it’s a whole different ballgame. I’ve lived, I’ve learned, I’ve gotten scarred, bruised, battered and broken. I have also been the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. I’ve experienced milestones that I never thought I’d get to at this age and I’ve found a whole new level to living from one perspective, to two.

“I love you” is not a phrase I just throw around, and I’m happy to report that I’m still using it knowing the gravity the words carry behind it.