I was talking with my Aunt outside of the trailer where J and I were sleeping while we were visiting my family over New Years. It was J's first time meeting my Dad's side , but that's not what we were talking about. Instead we were standing in the frigid cold talking about the nuances of working from home and the challenges of time management.

"I have to wrap up by the time J get's home, because once he's back I just want to hang out with him." I admitted semi-sheepishly.

"It's the same for me" my Aunt who's been married for something like 42 years said. " It doesn't matter what we're doing, everything is just better with him."

It made me remember being a tweenager and asking my parents how they knew they found the ONE. None of the answers seemed right to me. I wanted flashes of lighting, choirs of angles, big flashing neon signs. I wanted absolute irrefutable certainty, because whether I knew it or not, I feared that a relationship signaled the end of, well, me.

That fear isn't completely unfounded either. There are so many movies and songs and books that all seem to recount that story. Two people meet, they fall in love, the story ends; assumedly because nothing worth telling happens after that.

I have a drive for passion, and life, and ecstasy, and I don't often see those qualities portrayed in tales of lasting love nearly often enough.

Isn't committing to get to know someone at the deepest level possible terrifying, and exciting, and wonderful and totally risky, which is, like, the definition of ADVENTURE? So why do we act like everything has to just go static?

We may like to view our parents or grandparents relationship with a lens of nostalgia, but life is very rarely easy and two people living together for years will always have had to come through the fire. Love is anything but boring and cliché.

So I'm taking on another Love inspired EP.

I've decided to interview a variety of couples (and singles, and relationally fluid folks) to gather perspectives, stories, and truthsto keep the songs from drifting into the pastel miasma of nostalgia. The first song will be released February 1st to my Patreon page and February 2nd to my Bandcamp page and I'll release one song a month until June.

(email me at abigrace@foxandphoenixrecords.com if you are interested in being interviewed)

If you want to get some behind the scenes views, snippets of the interviews, and a reminder whenever a new song comes out sign up for the Adventures in Ever-After mailing list below.

Because Settling Down isn't the Dream Anymore.