So, yesterday at work a fellow employee enquired about my status in terms of relationships.  I told her I was seeing someone, when she immediatley clued into the fact that I had mentioned it before, with all the details that I've known my love for 5 years, three of which have been spent as best friends.  I reaffirmed that I do Love my girlfriend, and by the term love I mean "love", not just a word thrown around for teenage use.

Anyway. my fellow employee asked a second question that kinda threw me off guard.  She asked: Well, hoow do you know it's love?  I mean after five years of being friends, was it just like, hey I love you?  How do you know?

It took me a bit by suprise, b/c I have not thought too hard on the matter of how we came to have a metamorphis in our once plutonic relationship.  And so I took some time to collect my thoughts and events.  I won't detail the events, but I will answer the question about how after five years I came to just one day realize I 'loved" her.  You see, it is a simple matter that we have formed bonds, links in our persons through a long series of events.  Trials and tribulations forge strong bonds, and break weak links.  She has been perhaps the only friend of mine who has not wonder from my side.  Her loyalty has been tested time and time again.  Secondly, we are really similar in almost evrything we like, but different in enough ways to appreciate those similarities.  We fit almost perfectly together.

The last and deciding factor in my decision that this is love is, that I am more self conscious than most will admit, and am so far more self analytical than most like to be.  I know what I feel, and when i feel something, I feel it strongly.  And this is one of those moments in life that affects yer life, and when it does, ripples through your system.    Plus, I believe in a bit of divine intervention in our coming together- a bit of fate in linking our hands in the dark.

Basically, I know I love her, and I am more fully aware of most stupid teens to knwo what love is and when I am in it.  I love my girlfriend, and act on it everyday, and am astounded by how each morning I love her a bit more. 
Why si this important...well....we are moving on 1 year, whic to many is pretty small, but after the distance between us, and the problems we ahve faced together, she still stands by m and I the same.  To one year and beyond my darling.