I’ve been reading a lot lately to curb the phone addiction that keeps me up until the witching hour. I’m about halfway through a book that focuses on a woman with many relationships, but just one true love of her life.
I stayed up very late thinking about the loves of our lives. I thought about the people I said those three words to, and how I didn’t mean it three out of four times. I could live without so many, and I did just that.
High school was a weird time, and I was dating someone for a little over three years by the time I graduated. I told him I loved him because we had been together for so long. It was intense, and never actually romantic. Looking back, it was so cringy. I didn’t love him.
I didn’t love the other two either. There were so many nights I’d lie awake, just looking at my partner, trying so hard to tell myself I loved them. I couldn’t do it. Am I cold? Am I destined to never love anyone?
Perhaps it’s my residual Catholic guilt that forced me down the aisle. I had a baby, I was unwed, and my grandpa would be so disappointed in me. I shed a tear walking down that aisle. Not because I was happy, but because I knew that it was a dumb mistake. Everyone knew.
I settled. I was unhappy all the time, and you could see it on my face. I once again tried to talk myself into love, I tried to see if I could generate a spark. I never could. I just won’t have a great love.
Insert some funny guy with a nice smile. I didn’t have to generate a spark, or sit up wondering if there was anything I could force myself to love. It was just there. It was natural.
I found myself wanting to show affection after hating it my entire life. I was almost clingy for a while, dying to learn everything about him, and stay up all night texting. This was not me, this was some love sick puppy.
Then I said those three words. It was so quick and I panicked a little, only because I was so worried it wouldn’t be reciprocated. Me, the cold-hearted woman saying I love you at all, let alone first?
Fast forward about 18 months or so, and I actually asked him to marry me. We’re coming up on seven years now and not a day goes by that I don’t think about how lucky I am, with that luck he’ll claim I made. I still sit up at night while he drifts off to sleep — but instead I think about all the ways I love him now, and how I can love him more the next day.
That’s love, friends. That’s the love of my life.