How to Love again

There is something so comforting to me about being in your arms; falling right into you as I walk through the door you always seem to leave unlocked for me. I love that you have things you want to share with me immediately, and I love listening to you go through the events of your day, the games and matches you had, the shit that you had to put up with from your terrible boss. I love the feeling of “us,” the safe and comforting place we have created, where we can each be ourselves and worry not about what the other thinks.

I love the way you know my body and all the right buttons to press. I love that you know how to tease me with just a look, and how my body melts into yours whenever you’re near me. I love that in the mornings when I wake before you, you don’t make a big deal about my inability to leave quietly or leave you sleeping, like I probably should. I love that in the mornings when we wake together, you make a tea for yourself, but not before making a coffee for me.

More importantly than the things I love about us, I love that you’ve taught me it’s okay to feel again. You’ve reminded me what it is to feel again – to feel for someone else, and to feel for myself. You’ve inspired me through every day that I’ve known you so far, and I look forward to the days you will continue to teach me to pull through.

Before I knew you, I knew hurt. I knew abandonment, I knew pain, I knew guilt, and I knew fear. I knew so many other things you should never feel in a relationship. Though I would never show it, especially to you, I had been torn apart from the inside out, my heart shattered into so many pieces. I thought those pieces had been picked up with the wind and scattered for good, never to be found. But when you found me, without knowing it, you brought with you some of the pieces I thought I would never regain. Slowly, together, we began to rebuild me, neither of us noticing it happening until I realized how whole I suddenly felt around you.

I am not asking for more than we are; in fact, I am thankful the cards played out the way they did, so I could have the time to heal alone, but with you near me. I fully believe that in another life, or even another point in history, I would be yours, you would be mine, and that would be the end of it. No questions asked, no conundrums to debate; just you and me, and the rest of the world around us. But for now, in this moment, I am happy to be held in your arms on the nights neither of us wants to spend alone; I am happy to share my breakfast with you in the diner, happy to share my day with you when I see you after work, and more than happy to have you be the last thing I see before falling asleep with you. More than that, though, I am happy that you taught me that it is okay to love, and to want to be loved. I am finally happy.