Where is the Romance in a Decision?

The most common response to my claim that love is a decision, is "That sure takes all the fun out of it." A decision sounds calculated and measured, the idea of a decision doesn't appear to leave room for romance, fate and all the other magical and mysterious things that we associate with love. I say it certainly does, because love is a decision we are completely unequipped to make for ourselves. We are all way too narrow minded, self-centered, and generally clueless to make a logical decision about love. Nevertheless we all make these decisions and therein lies the mystery, the romantic leap into the unknown. We choose to love people for a wide assortment of reasons, all of them are temporal. Whether its looks, wealth, humour, intelligence all of these things change over a lifetime but we make a lifetime decision based on them. I think the truth is the decision to devote and to trust are the only things that have a legitimate chance of surviving a lifetime, all the other things are fuel for the decision and over a lifetime love can use a lot of different fuels. In my opinion, looks, sense of humour, excitement, good sex, children, and comfort, are perfectly valid and natural evolutions for fuels for love over a lifetime, as long as regardless of the ebbs and flows of the fuel, the decision to devote and trust remain. Even as I re-read that last sentence I think that even the strength of that commitment will undoubtedly vary through a lifetime but that doesn't mean that love is not there, the decision to love has to be re-made daily.

I think personally of the mystery of the decision, I dated Ahmeda (my wife) for almost 4 years and never made the decision to really love her until we had been broken apart for almost seven months, on a flight home from a debaucherous trip to Iceland. About seven weeks later we negotiated our reunion over the phone. I was in a hotel in La Paz, Bolivia. I always tell her that the elevation may have impaired my judgment at the time. Seven weeks after that we went on a trip to Turkey and I proposed to her with my Engineering ring. Which I replaced with something more fitting by the end of the trip. Despite the tale I tell of planning out a perfect engagement in a city that straddles two continents for a marriage that would do the same, I didn't know if I was going to go through with it just moments before the words came out of my mouth. I was so unsure I hadn't told anyone my family or hers that I had any intention to propose, in case I changed my mind. My indecision had nothing to do with the sincerity of my love for Ahmeda, it was entirely about the enormity of the decision. There was so much I didn't know about what the future would hold, how could I make such a life changing decision. Then I realized I could never know the future, and I could never create a more perfect moment. That's the real lover's leap (big up J.A.)

Video from Turkey, no footage of me on one knee but you do see me bending over backwards again.