My love, you make me so happy.
From the beginning, you always tried, even though I sure have been confusing at times, I know. Sometimes I worry too much, and sometimes its over things that don't even deserve my worry. And you've always been there, looking out, catching those things.
I feel like you so honestly look out for all my needs, which I never expected ever from you. Never from anyone.
I've said before that love doesn't actually exist, until suddenly it does, and when you find it--where ever you find it--it's a new and priceless discovery.
I've also said that love is inertia, not a force, and not words. People live for it, until they die for it.
I've also flat-out asked the universe if there is a limit to how many times a person can truly fall in love. I've asked because I really did think there was a limit, last year around this time. Although at the moment the question seems silly. During that time we pretended we didn't want each other, people did claim to fall in love with me. And they tried to hand their hearts over to me. But I never felt like I could offer mine to anyone. At the time it felt horrible. Like probably I was broke. Honestly I felt like with me it really just came down to the fact that it was more like you'd have to go searching for the scattered pieces. Like my love was some sort of goddamn treasure hunt with no map. I literally didn't think I was capable of loving someone, deeply and essentially, anymore. At least not more than I love any other of my friends.
I had gone full circle. Because if I had ever before contemplated love or marriage, I had always simply wanted a friend. Someone I adored, to grow old with. But when you stepped into my life, you changed love itself for me. It went from what I always thought was simply a really strong loyalty, to something I really believe in. To something almost spiritual. Something elemental, like an essential nutrient or really, like you were a part of me. Or I of you, baby.
And yes we sure had our time away.
I don't know if the onlookers that were constantly popping up—either cheering or jeering—I don’t know if they knew how badly I was drowning that year. Actually not drowning, freezing. I was solidifying as I just attempted to press on without you. Petrification as I attempted to go about my everyday life with missing pieces, radiating out all my body heat and energy and person into the wide open to be consumed by earth and weather for forever. On my knees and bleeding out gray thoughts like that love is absolutely nothing more than a few well-or-poorly-placed chemicals, whichever a person's relative experiences might have led them to feel about it. I was pushing out everything that I was made up of, because I had nothing left that wasn't yours. All that I wanted, all that I was, all that I had come to believe since escaping the cult, all of it felt numb, cold, and useless in your absence. And I couldn't stop it, despite how little sense it made. For me, I needed to re-evaluate.
So I was emptied. No matter how hard I kept trying to re-frame hope, I could no longer hold on to any other lasting trust, conviction, or sometimes even compassion for anyone other than for my children, and my family in faraway states. I couldn’t find it in me any longer to believe in people, even though that had always been my Modus Operandi, even though it was what originally puzzled you so much about me.
I know it's also one thing you love about me, bittersweet naive trust it has sometimes been.
Because then you turned around and saw me. And you turned back for me right before those parts of me might have collapsed to the ground for good. I don't think they know--anyone who might judge us--and I don't know if you do even fully, if you've even fully grasped it. I only know you feel it. I'm sure you do because you came for me, and you did everything I secretly hoped you would. But I was so close to being gone too. Not in a physical sense, just in every other sense that mattered. I couldn't hold on. Despite how much I tried to rethink and rationalize it, and poured out my thoughts in writing, my consciousness was intent to just slip away and be scattered into the universe, my inescapable mechanism for letting go.
But then you stopped, and you collected all my pieces and showed them to me, renewed with your love, and backed by your authenticity. You showed me how much you truly loved every part of me, bit by bit over the months.
And now I am here again with you. You came for me and refueled and relit my flickering, darkening candle. And you never let me fall back into that dark vacuum. And from the beginning, you know, you were always my hero. You look out for my needs and even my desires, even though I don’t ever ask. Also honestly that naivety I have that arises from time to time, you watch out for it. And I know you. And I want you, every part of you. Even the parts you thought I wouldn't, I adore them. Each facet of your personality is gorgeously interwoven into the whole of the person I know and love. I want to love you forever. I want you to trust I will be there and follow you and care for you where ever you take me, where ever this journey leads us.
I love you my darling, and if I were to get away with one post where I embarrassingly gush our journey out, loudly to the world, I would so end it by letting everyone know how incredibly happy I am that I will be your wife, and you will be my forever. My ride or die. My inertia. Our priceless discovery.
Kisses, baby. Kisses.