From the moment I met I met you, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was irritated by you, and there is simply no other word for it. Who was this woman that was so loud and obnoxious? Why couldn’t I walk away from her? It was because the quieter I got, the more you sat silently and listened like no one in the world. You took on my pain as your own, and within a month of being a huge pain in my ass I knew that we would be together for the rest of our lives. I just couldn’t tell you.
The timing wasn’t right for either of us right up until we realized it would never be the right time if we didn’t make room for it. For lack of a better term, by being best friends we “courted” for three and a half years before our first kiss. So many secrets whispered to God and no one else. We sat in one place emotionally for a long time because it was easy. We took hands and jumped off a cliff when the connection between us ran greater than anyone else for both of us. We moved heaven and earth for each other, because we knew the other one deserved it. We’d each been there, all day, every day, in moments when most best friends would have bailed a long time ago. I’d spent so many years throwing emotion down a hole. Having someone who could match me, love feeling for love feeling until we Just. Couldn’t. Even. Love feelings that run so deep that they often don’t get expressed because the letters will not rise from the river.
The blessing of my life has been the invitation into your silence. The whys and hows of you. The moments where the conversation is in our eyes because it’s the gift you get when you’re willing to work out tough issues and hold the relationship to a higher standard than you hold yourself. We knew that when we met. We knew we were both lobsters, even though we’d like to pretend that all women find us incredibly desirable just to feed our street cred.
We don’t give each other love because it’s a requirement. We give each other love because it feeds our power like oxygen, acting as jet fuel as the world makes room for us to fly. Being tempered by your fire allowed me to relax, and adjust my seat and tray table.
My world exploded with our agreement. I can only hope I’ve been half the woman to you that you have been to me over the years. I look forward to praying our future into existence with you. I look forward to fighting it out, merging our directions not by assumption but by choice. When Ben Affleck said to Jennifer Garner that “there’s no one he’d rather work with,” I smiled to myself. Ben GETS it. It is a yes you make every day.
Thank you for being my yes, every moment of every day.
Blessings on this, our seventh anniversary.
I do, with everything that I am and ever will be.
Love,
Leslie
Stories That Are All True 