What My Partner Taught Me About Love
Photo by Mayur Gala on Unsplash
She is my love inspiration.
We dated before, and we’re dating now. We both thought it would never, ever happen again.
What we had was very good– great, even. We were in love and we loved each other hard. We were young, though. At 16 and 17, we had a mature love that only grew stronger with time. Now, at 23, we picked up right where things ended.
When my Apple Watch buzzed and lit up with her name on it, my body paused for a moment. I was completely caught off guard. I quickly replied and found myself wanting to stay stuck in our stream of messages for the next 5 weeks and a day.
My heart hasn’t throbbed this way in 6 years.
Some of the greatest love songs ever recorded actually feel real now. This is how we reconnected. We created music playlists to help us communicate precisely what we felt when we started talking again.
We still listen to them together. It reminds us of that journey of getting to where we are now. We deeply value communication and commitment - two essential elements of our reconnection.
She’s taught me that love is a combination of connection, compassion, commitment, communication, trust, understanding, respect, and passion, among other things… And they’re all present here.
Love isn’t saying “I love you” all the time, or constantly making promises that you intend to keep. It also shouldn’t be trying to make everything work all the time without making the necessary changes for things to get better.
She loves me fully and gently. I feel cuddled by her love. Her love is an embrace, with an “I don’t want to let you go tonight” touch – but the “tonight” is every second of every day.
When we don’t see eye-to-eye on certain things, we refuse to interpret it as a problem because it really is just another opportunity for us to have a conversation to share our thoughts and opinions.
Our love is an adventure, and I want to go all the way with her.
