You Taught Me How To Love Every Part Of Someone (And I Can’t Thank You Enough)

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After over two decades of devouring novels, studying my grandparents, secretly interviewing my father, and crying too intensely during a film or two I thought I was thoroughly well-versed on the subject of love. I was convinced that I knew all I could possibly know, that I would recognize it when it finally came, but I was not prepared for it when it finally came knocking on my door (with a wrinkly t-shirt, heinous glasses, untied shoes, and a charming smile).

In the last 9 months, I’ve loved harder and more ferociously than I think doctors recommend. I’ve thrown whatever I am made of into you and you filled me up in return. I didn’t think about it because thinking just numbed the sensation I was feeling. I didn’t plan it or calculate it because the little, unexpected moments kept getting better as we went. We were doing it together and I followed you even though I didn’t know where we were going. So far, I have learned as much as I’ve hurt and have lived so much more because of what your love is made of.

You, my boy, have taught me that my reality isn’t always reality (when I am having a heart attack or dying from bug bites, that might not actually be so). You have given me patience and understanding in a place where I usually am faced with confusion and fear. You have shown me what it feels like to fall deeply in love, have my heartbroken, and then fall again even harder. You have reminded me that even you are not perfect and if I love you I will love you for just that. You have taught me that running away doesn’t do anything and staying in bed to fight a little longer is always the answer.

You have made me adore parts of a human I never even looked at before. I’ve never been so infatuated with freckles, the size of a person’s teeth, or the shape of someone’s calves. You have walked beside me and when you got a little bit ahead, you waited until I could catch up. We both grew as much as we could without each other, and I think were waiting for someone to get to the top of the trees where we were. I saw you, and you saw me, and we then knew we had a lot farther to go.

I want to make you dinners that you don’t like that much and pack you lunches that you’ll probably forget in the fridge. I want to fold your laundry and not know they’re actually dirty clothes. I want to unmake your bed and get into it just so I can rub your skin on mine and push my foot in between both of yours. I want to take care of you.

I want to be with you in your normal, boring, everyday moments because to me, they are anything but that.

Thanks for the foot kisses, the Chinese food (the quantity of which will always stay between us), the coffee in the morning and the tea at night, for challenging my ideas, for taking the blame for my mistakes, for mimicking my temper tantrums, for laughing at my gymnastics routines (and doing them with me), for playing made up games and writing songs with me, and for loving me through the hard stuff.

Let’s keep going.