A year of Togetherness

There was a time when I wanted our relationship to move at lightning speed.
I wanted to go on adorable dates, to skip forward to the first kiss, to hear “I love you,” to introduce you to all of my friends, my family, and every other person I knew.
I wanted to run down the street and scream at the top of my lungs that I was with you. I wanted to get the entire world involved in our relationship.
I wanted to move quickly .
I was definitely trying to get somewhere .
Where ? I don't know.
Or else , I don't want to know.
Because a question demands for an answer and an answer brings an end .
But now that I have known you "Maybe" ,
I want us to go days without seeing each other and hours without speaking. I want your heart to ache and to miss me. I want to wonder where you are and what you are doing, because it’s you, and your life is like a beautiful mesh of wonder and excitement that I want to unravel and fit into those pieces to make you whole .
I want to feel like I could spend forever learning about you, because we are in no rush, and because who you are today isn’t who you’ll be next week, next year or even tomorrow.
I want to make love to you on some evenings I want to cuddle and kiss and giggle over nothing
I want the intensity and the seriousness of our relationship to come from the raw fact that we know this is not forever. It’s only right now.
I want to feel whole with you but trust that I am my own complete individual and that together we can combine our messy selves to create something that just might be slightly more exciting and beautiful
As we completed our year of being married together ,
 I want you to know that I love who you are, deep down—the timeless innocence and childish spark , frivolous and whimsical , the true and selfless intent I see in your eyes.


Yours

Respect the Right

Throughout my childhood and teenage years, I heard the adults around me repeat, “Respect your elders!” over and over again. Naturally, I believed this to be true and continued to respect all my elders — teachers, old aunts and uncles, or distant relatives. I was the well-behaved girl who never back-answered and who always gave into the demands of the adults around me. I was the girl who would greet every adult at the party and converse with them, even if I didn’t want to. But things changed as I grew older.
I realized the respect they demanded from me was not a suggestion or a choice; it was an order. I was forced to respect my elders even if they offended me or were rude to me. I was forced to oversee their faults and their mistakes because they were older than I. I was forced to respect my elders even when they didn’t respect me.
I distinctly remember this one occasion where an adult insulted my cousin and passed rude comments about the way she was dressed. They kept harassing her, bringing her down, and shattering her self-esteem. But she never said anything because it was disrespectful to talk back to your elders. She stood there in silence, saying nothing and doing nothing.
We etch this saying into the impressionable minds of children, making them victims of backhanded compliments and blatant insults. We turn these children into cowards, not giving them a chance to stand up for themselves or defend themselves in such situations. We change the meaning of respect in their head to fear.
Respect, according to me, is a feeling of admiring someone or something that is good, valuable, and important. It’s a positive feeling we  experience when we see someone do something admirable or accomplish something that inspires us. That is the true meaning of respect.
When children are forced to respect elders, they grow into people who believe everything an adult tells them. In their heads, respect translates to blind obedience. They fail to distinguish the difference between good and bad or right and wrong.
I’m not saying we should teach children to disrespect or disregard adults. I’m not saying we should teach children to disobey their parents or authoritative figures.
I’m saying we should teach them to respect people who respect them, not just elders. We should teach them to respect everyone, young or old, as long they reciprocate the same.