I’m trying really hard to be open to love, to let it in without worrying that it will leave. I’m trying really hard to let myself fall fully, to fall backwards and allow you to catch me instead of catching myself. I’m trying really hard to imagine a life where you choose to stay instead of go.

But who’s going to tell me how? How am I supposed to be open? How do I let myself fall? How do I stop imagining you leaving when leaving is all I’ve ever known?

I’m afraid to love you because every time I’ve tried to love, I’ve failed. I worry I won’t be enough to make you stay. I worry that you’ll change your mind, that you’ll want something different, a different kind of life with a different kind of person, someone who so clearly isn’t me. I worry that maybe you never wanted me at all, that it was the idea of me you fell in love with, and not the person I actually am.

I’m afraid to love you because I know I already do. I know I’m madly, deeply in love with you and that just the thought of you leaving makes me want to hide and never come out, to reduce myself to nothing so that nothing is all I can feel. I already know I’ve fallen. I already know that I’m attached. I already know that I’ve opened up my life to you in ways I never have to anyone else.

I already know that you’re different from the rest of them, from the ones who made leaving familiar. I already know that you love me back and that you say you’ll probably love me forever. But that’s just it, the probably. It’s the probably that scares me, the uncertainty of love, of this love and every other love.

And I know that love will never really be certain in terms of forever, but that didn’t stop me from looking for it, from needing certainty to let me love you. I thought that certainty was the key that would make me open up to you. I thought certainty was the thing that would allow me to fall fully. I thought certainty would be the only way I’d be able to keep love instead of push it away. Now I know differently, not better, but just differently.

Now I understand that we won’t know what will happen tomorrow, or next month, or next year, or next decade, but that the unknown is no reason to fear the love we feel today. I feel a love for you today that, yes, I feel like will last forever, and I know you feel it too, and even though we can’t see into the future, even though certainty is only something each of us can feel right now, I’m not going to let that keep me from loving you. I’m not going to let that scare love away. Not this time. I’m trying really hard to be less afraid of loving you.