There’s Coffee In The Sugar Pot And Butter In The Jam Jar.

I find the little things the most annoying; the little habits that people have, that sometimes they don’t even realise they have, but that stick out in my mind. Like coffee in the sugar pot, butter in the jam jar, leaving a drawer open, not turning off a light when leaving a room, not flicking the switch on a plug socket. I try my best to leave them be but it eats away at me. I can see the little red square on top of the plug and I have to get out of my seat and turn it off. I don’t even use the sugar for myself anymore but I still find myself picking out the coffee granules because it irritates me for a reason I can’t understand. Pieces of biscuit floating on the surface of a drink, leaving the milk out of the fridge, toast crumbs and butter smears all over the side are a few more. It’s not difficult, is it? Turn off the light, wipe down the side and shut the drawer. Please. It’s driving me insane.

These are little things I notice around the house. I’ve been home for over three weeks now, with only eight days to go until Easter vacation is officially over, and it is these things that are starting to bother me. It’s amazing how blind I can become to these irritating habits of my family. I miss them so much when I am away and I am so happy to see them that I forget about all of the little things they do. They’re not things that hurt me, not things that hurt anyone, in fact, and yet they get under my skin and irritate me no end. But they wouldn’t be them if they didn’t do these things. And I love them enough that I accept these things (and put them right when they’re not around).These habits are a part of who they are and I wouldn’t change them for the world. I think that is a part of what love is.

I’m pretty sure I read somewhere once that love is accepting the worst things about someone, and loving them despite this. It’s getting past crumby butter and the fact that they never text back when they say they will and seeing them for the person that they are. Their inability to shut a drawer doesn’t mean that they’re a bad person. It might mean that they can make you cry with laughter. In the same way that not texting back, or waiting until ridiculous hours of the morning to do it, or leaving on a light, or any of those other things doesn’t necessarily affect the other great things about a person. Whether it’s with your family, your friends or someone who means more, the foundations of love are pretty much the same. You can’t choose your family, of course, but they also say that you can’t choose who you fall in love with – so really, when you look at it closely, it’s all the same.

My views on love are all over the place. I believe that you can't stop yourself from loving someone, and that you can't make yourself love someone either. That is something completely beyond our control. And I believe that the process of falling in love is a gradual one; I have trouble with the concept of love at first sight. What I do believe is that you fall in love with all parts of a person, the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, and when that happens it's very hard to escape from it. You accept the annoying habits, like the open drawer, because the good outshine any of the bad, no matter how bad that may be, Of course, there's a line, but I'm pretty certain it comes far and beyond a bottle of warm milk.