I'm Italy Mone and this is the slowdown.

There are a few things as transformative in a life, as falling in love.

It's almost cliché really, but it's true.

It changes you.

Whether we want it to or not.

I remember taking a short trip from Brooklyn to Connecticut with my now husband.

Before we said those three loaded words, but both of us knew.

We sat on the dock of a friend's borrowed beach house and watched the moon over the water.

It was beautiful and it was ridiculous.

I remember I kept wanting to ruin the moment with a joke.

I kept wanting to make it less significant because I could feel things changing.

I remember how good I felt with them, how solid.

But I also remember how scary it all was.

It felt like the firm ground I had depended on was shifting to sand underneath me.

It seems like it should be easy to fall in love.

Don't we do it all the time?

But it wasn't at least not for me.

I knew that to admit how I felt would be admitting to a whole different life.

A life that was intertwined with someone else's needs and wants.

A life that was at risk of heartache, loss, disaster.

Later when that love solidified in me like roots taking hold in the soil,

I wanted to shout it out to strangers.

...