You and me

[youtaughtmetoloveagain]

It should go without saying but this is my promise to you, so long as you’re with me, your life will remain yours and yours alone.

I have never thought of true love as someone being there at your side every moment of every day, but being free, and encouraged, to pursue your own passions and to share in the spoils of your triumphs together. If you need to get away, then pack your things and go, send me a postcard, or don’t, it is entirely up to you. If you have to sacrifice some of our time together to acquire your dream job, then go on, good luck, we’ll work around it. You will always have my understanding and support.

I don’t feel a need to limit you to feel more secure or in control. And I will never be so pathetic as to perceive your successes as a threat to your commitment to me or our bond, but instead a manifestation of the powerful impact our love for one another has had on each of our lives. I believe what so many of us call compromise is more like consented confinement — a shared, illogical fear that if we don’t enforce a strict set of restrictions on each other we will inevitably lose one another to something more thrilling. That is not what I want for us. I will never ask you to sacrifice a thing in exchange for my heart. And if you ever feel the need to spread your wings, I will gently let you go.

My priority here is our happiness, that’s all. That we both lead vibrant, individually fulfilling lives and achieve and experience all we set out to. Petty possessiveness is a purposeless poison, and I will never allow it to sicken our love or the joys of life available to us. I promise to always respect your strength enough to know you don’t need me to wage your wars, but should you ever call on me, you can trust that I will be there. And I promise you will never have to plan in advance or bargain with me just to have a night out with your friends. Your friendships are as integral to the health of your spirit as our love and they will never be put second or made to feel like they are competing with me for the privilege of your company.

Let’s be independent together. Let’s approach our relationship from a place of what we can bring rather than what we can take. Let’s be near each other out of necessity not obligation. Let’s remain together not just because we made a commitment, but because we genuinely choose each other everyday.

I read this somewhere and it has always stayed with me - "I’m not choosing you because our being together makes sound, solid sense. I choose you because you make me forget there’s a choice."

Our being together is not the end of your story, it is only the beginning of its greatest installment. Our being together isn’t hanging up your hat, it is slipping on party clothes, shooting back a whole bottle of wine, and heading out on the town to make mistakes and memories that last a lifetime. So go on and write your story. Be the daring, free-spirited, defiant, mischievous creature I first fell in love with. I don’t need to be your whole world, I just want to share mine with you.

[youtaughtmetoloveagain]

We have all fallen for temporary people.

They come as swiftly as they go from our lives; with their reeling minds and striking bodies and genuine, wide-open hearts. They are hurricanes and madness and wrecking balls; they’re sunshine and blissful surrenders.

We want to shelter ourselves from the storms that these people embody but we also want to walk right into the center of them. We want their chaos and their madness; we want it the way others once wanted ours.

We are advised not to fall for these people. And yet we do, knowing full well we can’t keep them. How could we not, after all?

We want their nows and forevers. We want their sleepy half-smiles every morning and their sturdy arms to lull us to sleep. We want their wine-drunk Saturday evenings and their lazy Sunday mornings. We want their words and their silences; their downfalls and their strengths. We want the whole of the people we love but we’re sometimes only given a fraction. And so here’s what we do with that instead.

When we don’t get to hold on to the people we love, we wrap their memories in between our heartstrings and we carry them with us. We remember their laughter on the days when the rain comes pouring down. We envision the curves of their skin when we need to know that all is not lost. We take the moments we share with these people and we freeze them, we immortalize them, we keep them preserved and alive inside the ancient museums of our minds.

Because love doesn’t need to last forever in order to make a lasting impression.

We don’t need to curse and resent and forget the people life didn’t let us hold onto. We don’t have to rid ourselves of their impressions and shelter ourselves from their impact. We’re allowed to let them in. We’re allowed to let them matter. We’re allowed to engage in the temporary foolishness of falling for someone who is not going to be left holding our crippled, wrinkled hand fifty years down the road.

Because some people simply are not meant to stay forever. Some people come into our lives for a season, for a reason, for the simple purpose of showing us the world in a way we would never have seen it otherwise.

And what else can we do but hold onto these people while we have them?

What else do we do but grow enchanted by the brilliance of their minds, by the purity of their spirits, by the strength and intensity and contrast that they cast into the colorless corners of our lives?

What else do we do but memorize the scent of their skin and the taste of their bodies and the wisdom of their ever-reeling mind, so long as we still have them captured inside the tangible corners of our Universe? What else do we do but love them with everything we have before they’re gone?

After all, we never know how much time’s left.

Maybe anyone worth knowing is worth knowing for only a short while. Maybe anyone worth loving is worth loving inconclusively.

And when you look at it that way, it doesn’t seem quite so unbearable at all: to allow yourself to love someone with everything you’ve got – and then to fully and completely let them go.

[youtaughtmetoloveagain]

I can’t convince you to love me but I can be your friend. I can be your wise friend when you want someone to talk to — someone who can just listen. I can be your crazy friend when you want someone to have fun with, I can be your buddy when you just want to watch sports and I can be your best friend when you feel like no one else understands you. I can be all your friends in one not just to please you but because I find myself in all these friends and I want to be all that to you.

I can’t convince you to love me but I can show who I am.. I can show you how shy I really am underneath the loud laugh and the crazy stories. I can show you how vulnerable I really can be no matter how tough I try to act. I can show you my box of memories and walk you through the journey of my life, tell you my secrets and share with you the lessons I learned along the way. I can show you how I became who I am today.

I can’t convince you to love me but I can introduce to a different kind of love. I can promise you days filled with adventure and laughter and nights filled with deep conversations and passionate kisses under the moonlight. I can promise you unforgettable trips and special memories. I can promise you mad passion and fireworks, I can promise to fill all the empty veins in your heart and ease the restless thoughts in your head. I can promise to fill the void that creeps up on you at 2 PM on a random weekend when you feel that everything is great but something is missing.

I can’t convince you to love me but I can show you what I’ve written. What I don’t want the world to see or know, what I wrote when I was scared, what I wrote when I was broken and what I wrote when I was in love. I can let you read my words and tell you what they really mean. I can let you read my poems and the pain behind them, the letters I never sent and the faded paragraphs I wrote when my tears filled the pages.

I can’t convince you to love me but I can perfectly describe what I love about you. The way you run your fingers through your hair , the way you scrunch your eyebrows when you’re thinking or how your voice softens when you talk about your family and what’s wrong with the world. I can tell you how I love you when you’re fierce and how I adore you when you’re fragile. I can show you how wonderful you really are and how you add beauty to everyone else’s life. I can show you your own light and how it brightens the world of those who love you.

I can’t convince you to love me but I can show you the parts of me that I love and the parts of me that I hate. I can promise to love you bravely and fearlessly and show you how great you really are.

I can’t convince you to love me but that won’t stop me from loving you.

[youtaughtmetoloveagain]

You’re slowly teaching me how a simple text message during the day can turn the day around, and how a genuine interest in my day and how it’s going makes me want to make the best of it.

You’re slowly showing me how a simple cheesy song can put a huge smile on my face just because it reminds me of you and how you sing it. It makes me want to listen to it on repeat.

You’re slowly reminding me what it feels like to be appreciated, to be truly listened to and finally understood. It makes me want to tell you stories I promised never to tell anyone.

You’re slowly making me feel safe with you. I don’t flinch when you touch me. It makes me want to surrender my body to you.

You’re slowly tearing down my walls by reading me with your eyes and making sense of my senseless words. Something tells me you’re not going anywhere-atleast not now and it makes me want to let you see right through me.

You’re slowly reassuring me that you are not like the other ones. You don’t fill me with empty promises and empty words. You mean what you say and you always keep your word. You don’t give me a chance to doubt you or second guess you. You put my restless mind at rest.

You’re slowly teaching me how to be fearless again; fearless in being myself, fearless in telling you how I feel, and fearless in loving you. Even though I’m terrified, you make me want to be fearless.

You’re slowly accepting my flaws. And I realized I like myself more when I’m with you.

You’re slowly showing me how a mundane walk can be beautiful with you. And ordinary conversations can be extraordinary with you. You’re making simple moments special, and you’re making me feel special.

I think you’re slowly reminding me how to be loved, and what love really looks like and I think I am slowly falling in love with you.