What is Love? Part 2: An Illustrated Journal entry

I was just sitting around now thinking of the last post I made and how it was personalized to me. So I figured that I'd make a new one that generalizes what I was saying, and puts the relationship period in a different perspective. When I was 17, I broke my first bone. I had broken my arm my first time snowboarding and let me tell you, it was a long and grueling 6-8 weeks. But thinking back to it makes me think of how well a broken arm demonstrates how a good relationship works. See the first 2 weeks of a broken bone are awkward. You hurt, you get a little loopy from the meds, and you have to make adjustments to your everyday life to counter this new roadblock. By weeks 3 and 4, you are in less pain but are starting to work with the cast and figure out tricks to do things without hurting yourself. Around weeks 5 and 6, your limb is feeling better because the bone is growing back into place and you are ready to get it off. And finally, weeks 7 and 8 is the glorious time when the cast comes off and you are free to bang your limb on whatever you want without hurting too bad, unless you really smack it on something. Now take that and look at it in the eyes of a relationship. The first 2 weeks are the awkward getting to know you better phase. You start to get used to having someone around you constantly and you are a bit love drunk. Then weeks 3 and 4 roll around and you are hanging out with each other constantly, always having to be around each other and never breaking contact. Weeks 5 and 6 bring in the bonding and the connections outside of the couple, like hanging around your friends with your significant other or going to each others parents house for dinner. Finally, weeks 7 and 8 bring the physical into play. You see, when you let the bone heal for a long period of time, the bone becomes reconnected with the other part and grows stronger. Just like mending a bone, a relationship needs time to bond you and your significant other together until you are sure and ready to move on to a physical state. I feel that too often couples try to get funky in the early weeks and end up rebreaking the connection, therefore leaving it to heal wrong and ultimately lead to the downfall of the relationship. This is not always the case, but in today's society, it is seemingly looked down upon if a couple is together for a long period of time and has not gotten physical yet. Our society in America encourages being physical early on, ensuring that it is ok and will make your relationship better. What people don't see is that they need a solid connection with someone before they try to make that connection. If you don't have a strong foundation in a house, it won't stay up for very long now will it? And I'm not implying that 7-8 weeks is the perfect time in a relationship to get physical. It's just an example. Some couples get to that stage quicker, like say 7 or 8 weeks. But others get to that later, say a year or two, before making that step. It is going to be different in every relationship. But the only constant is that process of going through weeks 1 through 6 before getting to weeks 7 and 8 and making the connection that is needed to make the relationship nice and strong.