When I met you

If I had a nickel for every time I thought about you, I’d have only a nickel. You never leave my mind, you’re constantly running around in it in your cowboy boots, or occasionally sneakers. You’ve got a young spirit, but you’re old in body. You’re a goonie and a Prince Charming. You’re so many things but I’m mostly glad you’re mine. You want to be traditional and you respect me. You love star wars and have the figurines on your shelves. You’ve got an old radio and alarm clock. Your Bible is being held together by camo duct tape. Your family feels like mine and I love them already. You’re willing to go get ice cream and that’s important. You text me every morning and every night. You aren’t afraid to admit how you feel and you are honest. You’re a little cheesy and I love that. You’re a man of the fifties era at heart, and your class ring fits nicely on my finger.

After the promise ring

I have never been more in love and I can’t imagine loving you more than I did in that moment, but I’m sure I will. Every house you mention is nice, and it’s home when I think of you in it. You make me sure of what I want. The line between good and bad is so blurry in the world now a days, but when I look at you I know that you are the purest good I’ve ever encountered. I don’t mean that in a naive way either, I mean literally. I don’t understand how I survived without you for almost eighteen years. You keep me afloat and you remind me of what I want to be myself. You also keep me grounded, like a gardener plants a flower and nurtures it. I need you, you’re the balance in my life and I hope I can be that for you as well.

Pre engagement

What am I supposed to do when I’m not with you, except better myself for the next time that we’re together? How am I supposed to function? You’re so involved with every aspect of my life, I know I can’t be without you. I hope I never have to be without you. I thought I couldn’t love you more than the moment you gave me your class ring but I just kept falling. I kept falling in love with you and down the rabbit hole that is our love. I wish you nothing but happiness and I hope our marriage is filled with it.

Engaged

When you proposed, I floated out of my body. I watched it happen from a third person perspective. I was so shocked, even though we had talked about it a million times, I was blown away. I didn’t expect the moment to be so monumental, it meant so much to me. The fact that you bought me a ring, and got down on one knee. The fact that you chose me, out of everyone in the world, to be your wife. I hope you know that I had already chosen you back in September and I will never regret that decision.

I love you so much, I will never love anyone the way I cherish you. Every moment with you is a gift that I never want to take for granted. You make me so happy. You make me giggle and I have never been happier than I am when I’m with you. You are my my safe haven, the best words I have ever written and the song in my heart.

54 days until “I Do”

I am so excited to marry you. I got in my first accident today, and all I could think about was how I wanted to talk to you one more time. To tell you I love you, instead I got your “Dodge nosredna” voicemail greeting….but even that was comforting. At church last night, it kept crossing my mind that you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I wish I could relive every moment we’ve had, over again. I’ll settle for spending the rest of my life with you. You’re so handsome with your new haircut and in those plaid shirts we bought at D&B. I hope our children look like you.

I keep going back and forth, should we wait to have kids? A year? Five years? Immediately? It finally hit me yesterday that I don’t care when, just as long as it is with you. I hope and pray that we are blessed with children someday. I hope we have at least one of both, that they are healthy and happy. I must be in love with you, because I glow when you cross my mind, which is unceasing. Can you blame me for being baby crazy? Have you seen your face? Heard your laugh or your voice? How can I not want tiny versions of you? Running around in bare feet making Chewbacca noises, those are our kids.

The day after you called it off

There are so many things I regret. I keep thinking that if I could go back and change it, that I would. Honestly though, I wouldn’t. I have to accept what’s done and move on. I want to hate you, and curse your name and say that it was all a lie. You and I both know that’s not true. I would’ve done anything in the world to keep you. I flat out told you that. It wasn’t enough for you.

  You did a complete rotation of our relationship. Things you said didn’t bother you, bothered you. How was I to know? I would’ve done anything for you and your happiness. But how could I know if you wouldn’t tell me. You tried to break off an engagement over the phone, and acted like I was the last person you wanted to talk to. You talked to me hours before that moment and said you loved me and wanted to marry me. I don’t believe for one second that you came to that decision on your own. I think you were scared and you let that fear overtake you. I think you threw away everything we had built because you didn’t want to talk things out. I’m angry and heartbroken, and yet here I am loving you. Because I know what love is and I know it was real.

I had to hand you back your ring, my ring. The ring you gave me. I handed back the promise of loving you and being with you. I had even offered it before, I wish you had taken it then. You said you wouldn’t leave, I believed you. I want to say I never met you and that I hate your stinking guts and that I never want to see you again. I want to say that if you showed up on my doorstep right now that I would take you back. But none of that is true. The truth is, I loved you enough to let you go even though it was the most painful thing in the world to do. I still love you. You don’t love someone, decide to marry them, be their best friend and then just leave. Those feelings don’t just go away. Or do they? You’d know I guess.

I want to call you and ask you to come back. I want wait outside on the apartment steps for you and tell you that you’re mistaken and that I can prove it. But that’s not right. I don’t think you’re right. I thought you loved me more than this. You told me you did. Did you lie or did you just really let other people do your thinking?

I’m going to be ok. I laughed and smiled and had fun today. I rolled the windows down and enjoyed the sunshine and blasted Taylor Swift and sang at the top of my lungs. I know I can live without you, and now I don’t have a choice. But that was never my concern, whether I could live without you. I didn’t want to live without you. I still don’t. I wish you had stayed.

I love you and wish you the best. Even if it’s not with me, you’ll be ok too.

A year later

I cannot believe how hurt I was by you. How I thought the world would stop turning, but it spun on and my life kept rolling along. I made it through, I fell deeply in love with someone else. I’m so thankful for what we had, because it made me realize what we had … was a fraction of what I felt for the next guy. Just like his love will help me with the next one after him.

We went to a mutual friends house the other day, and I thought it would be terrible. I almost didn’t go. But I went and it was actually sorta nice. It was odd, because I listened to you talk - and you haven’t changed at all. It was so weird to me, because I feel I’ve changed dramatically and drastically. We even talked to each other and it was...almost as if we’d never almost gotten married. We would’ve been married for a year last Saturday, I could’ve had a baby in that time! How thankful I am that we didn’t work out, I still wish you the best. I will just always wish it from a distance for as long as we both shall live.