My love,
In the course of human history, probably a billion words
have been written, spoken, or sung in regards to love. Some brilliant, some
banal, some profoundly expansive, some sweetly simple, and some utterly
gag-worthy, these utterances have blended together to cover the timeline in a
cacophony of the meaningful and mushy-gushy. I don’t know where my words will
fall on that scale, and I sincerely doubt that these simple sentences will make
a music that stands out above the rest. But the beauty of love is that anyone,
even the very simple, can experience it and express it. And so, permit me
please to try.
According to a Buddhist proverb, if you meet somebody and
your heart pounds, your hands shake, and your knees go weak, you haven’t met The One. I suppose that sentiment is
both true and false, at least in my experience. I’ve met just a few individuals
that have induced that fluttery reaction in the pit of my stomach. I’ve
sheepishly and shakily sorted through my words with the highest hopes of
picking the magic order, as if love was indeed a formula with hidden elements
and shaky experimentation. Indeed, in each of these instances I believed myself
to be in love with the he who could very well be The One. All the butterflies
and sweaty palms in the world, however, could not make the stars align for them
and I. The supposed correlation of agitation and love failed me again and
again. If only I had listened to the Buddhists.
The proverb continues: When you meet your soul mate, you
will feel calm. No anxiety, no agitation. This passive approach to love seemed
ludicrous to me once. Love was passionate fire, an uphill battle, the classic
fairytale duel with the dragon to rescue the princess. How else were you
supposed to know you loved someone, without the blood and sweat and tears and
butterflies?
And I guess I didn’t know when I met you. I could have never
guessed that the boy who made me laugh, made me feel safe in an effortless
friendship, would bypass the stage of sweaty palms and racing hearts to begin a
love that I can’t quite explain. Friends one day; lovers the next. This
transition utterly baffles me and all that I had ever believed about the stages
of love. However, I have learned that falling in love is less about matching my
feelings to song lyrics, Shakespeare plays, and Pinterest quotes and more about
writing my own story.
So here it goes:
Once upon a time, I fell in infatuation. And twice upon a
time, and yet a third time again. This sad and repetitive cycle produced
nothing but dead butterflies, residually sweaty palms, quite a few tears, and
the sorry realization that the love of fairy tales was nothing but a sham. This
unfortunate and inaccurate misbelief in infatuation as love characterized most
of my growing years.
Once upon a different time, I began to fall in love. Without
the fluttering nerves, I don’t believe I recognized it for a long while. It was
a quiet love, one that sneaks underneath the back door and warms up the room slowly,
until you suddenly realize that you have been utterly swaddled in it, the most
comfortable you have ever been. It was a joyful love, punctuated by frequent
bouts of laughter that slowly lengthened until they were one continuous smile.
It was a contemplative love, questioning ourselves, each other, the world around
us, never settling for what was given, but always pushing for something deeper
and more fulfilling. It was a love wrapped up in the purest form of friendship,
the attraction of knowing everything about one another too comfortable to
resist. It was the kind of love that absolutely needed time in order to
blossom; every passing day provided just enough of a glance of what was to
come. And come it did—silent and steady, until here it was. And here we are.
I think the great Buddha missed the mark slightly in his
proverb. While love is not exclusive to butterflies in your stomach, it most
certainly does not need to be absent of them. Love is not the absence of
extreme emotion, but the ability to experience such emotions in tandem with
another person. There have been and will be moments of exhilaration, of nervous
energy, of sadness, of anger. And, as I am prone to experience, moments of
fear. I must admit that there are days that I spend afraid of this love. I do
not feel that it is unwarranted; the love we share hinges on the very
foundation of our relationship. Any connection so deep carries with it the
great risk of a schism that could one day destroy everything built upon it.
With you I sail uncharted waters, and such a journey carries both the exhilaration
of adventure and the deep unease of the unknown. When such uneasiness threatens
to swallow me in its depths, I will remember the words of the Apostle John, the
disciple whom Jesus loved: “Perfect love casts out fear.” And while I cannot
love you perfectly, and you cannot love me perfectly, I can only trust that our
mutual pursuit of the Lover of our souls will drive out the fear of the unknown
and create in us a more perfect affection for his image.
While I’ve always held a sort of disdain for fairytales, I
must admit that the analogy of dragons guarding castles rings true. I have
spent too long hiding in towers of my own making, holding myself captive to an
unknown future. Bit by tiny bit, you have taken down those castle walls and
placed me face-to-face with my demons, my dragons, not to face them alone, but
together. The sound of crashing tower walls is the most beautiful love song you
have written for me.
Thank you for fighting for me. For helping me walk away from
the monsters under my bed. For cherishing even the most broken parts of me. For
loving my shadow.
In such a short time, you have bore all things, believed all
things, hoped all things, and endured all things, and you are more than I
deserve.
In the cacophony that is love, I think our song is worth
listening to.
I am yours,
Whitney.
