Tracey Enerson Wood

“...Mother had always advised against sharing domestic troubles outside the family. They would only return as unwelcome rumor. But I trusted Eleanor, so when we stopped to admire the waves crashing and the cry of the seagulls, I spoke of the changes in my marriage, hoping for some insight to my dilemma.
'My dear,' Eleanor said, 'you can't expect a marriage to remain as it is in the beginning. If your souls continued to burn for each other in that way, you would be cinders.'
'Then what is the point? Why do we marry for life, only to see love fade away?'
'Ah, but true love doesn't fade away. It changes, deepens. It seems to disappear at times, only to come back in a different way. Think of early love like a wave in the ocean, building and building until it tumbles from its own height. Then the calm, the drawing back, only to swell and crash again. When you get past the breakers, you don't feel the crash, but the water is still lifting and falling in life's rhythm.'
...I adjusted my hat to better shield my eyes from the blinding sun. 'It seems I pushed through the breakers only to find my husband wasn't with me on the other side.'
'Then you must swim until you find him.' Eleanor kicked seaweed from the path of sandpipers, skittering from approaching foam. 'Don't be tempted back into the breakers, seeking another for the journey. You may find the ocean spits you back out.”
― Tracey Enerson Wood, The Engineer's Wife