a letter...
... to my love
there's been so much i've wanted to talk with you about for some time. a lot of what you have seen thus far.
whether you're reading this shortly after i’ve typed it, weeks from now, months or even years later, no matter where you and i stand in time, space and in our lives... what i am writing at this moment will remain constant and true throughout.
i love you - still. i'm in love with you - still. i want to be with you - still.
i never stopped loving you nafi. i never stopped wanting to be with you. i know i will love again if not with you, but i also know with certainty—that love won't be the same. i’ve never loved anyone the way i love you. you are special. we are special. it was just different. a new kind of love, a feeling i’d never known could exist. a love that was magic, special, a little scary, timeless, genuine, curious, authentic, and real. a love that soley belonged to us. a love that seemed impossible until i was in it with you. a feeling that was constant while we were in each other's life, but i still didn’t fully understand… until you were no longer right there. the greatest love of my life. i will always love you.
as bonkers as it may sound, as confusing as it may feel, as challenging as it may be, as silly as it may seem to those on the outside looking in - i want to try again with you and i. i want us to try again with each other. i want to do it. i’m not afraid to. im not ashamed to. im not embarassed to. in fact, im excited to do it. i am inspired by the thought of it. i am proud of the chance to. there is nothing i want more. i know the idea of it is sort of, kind of, maybe, perhaps, a little bit, just a tad crazy bananas... but we know it will all be worth it. "you just gotta do everything you can to get the one woman who's gonna make this all worth it." you are worth it. i am worth it. we are worth it.
we aren’t the same persons that we were during the early stages of our togetherness… or the last stages of it... or even now. we’ve grown individually and as a unit in the relationship, and learned so much about ourselves and about each other and about us together, the good and the not so good. weve seen ourselves and each other in ways we have not before. let us give each other the proper opportunity speak on those things... to each other, to adopt the learnings, apply the growth and continually adapt to it.
relationships are alive - living, breathing, constantly growing and changing as we grow and change, as does the life and world around us. "i cant go back to yesterday, because i was a different person then." and that’s the absolute beauty of it. to see where we were when we first met, a young nafi and a not as young e, naive, bushy tailed, smart, bright eyed, imaginitive, curious lovers…. figuring things out, and how over time we have been able to thrive and overcome and flourish and endure and grow and love and live our togetherness over chapters, seasons and volumes. it makes for the most beautiful story, one that you and i are not only the stars of, but that we have the fortune to author as well.
you are probably thinking to yourself “the feelings are not the same anymore.” and you are right. does the feeling of love like the one we shared just vanish? love don’t just disappear, not without effort to make it go away, not without a deliberate choice to let it fade. maybe it’s been a battle, a tug-of-war between the mind trying to protect and guard, and the heart wanting to surrender to what it knows is real. the mind is fierce, and heart is just as powerful. "love is the easiest thing in the world when it happens by accident, but it doesn't get real until you do it on purpose." when we decide that something... or someone is worth it, we make effort. we make a deliberate choice. we carry the weight, push through the doubt, and create space for something new, something better, something enduring, something special. we do it on purpose with purpose.
you are probably asking yourself “how will it be different? how will it be better?” the answer is simple. it will be different because i want it to be. it will be better because you want it to be. we will be because we want it to be. “do or don't, there is no try.” we do the work. we don’t overthink it. we do show up. we dont hide. we do love. we do commit... not to perfection, but to the process. through that, we won’t just be different, we won’t just be better—we will be the best. the greatest of all time.
you are probably thinking to yourself “it’s too late. too much time has passed. too much has happened.” and you are right, time has passed. we feel it in the gaps, i feel it in the spaces where we used to exist together. "i used to think time was a thief. but he gives before he takes. time is a gift. every minute." the truth is that time only holds the power we give it. regret lives in the past. fear lives in the future. love lives in the present. there will never be a perfect time. so what better time than this moment right here and right now. we may very well have forever, or "sometimes, just one second."
you are probably thinking to yourself “this is crazy! he’s crazy!” you are absolutely right. love is crazy. our love is the crazy bananas kind that defies logic while making absolute sense — the magical, wild, beautiful, intense, maddening, perfect, flawed, authentic, comforting, thrilling, scary, genuine, adventurous, humbling, fun, grounding, deep, wholesome, reflective, kind, passionate, tricky, terrifying, bold, relentless, happy, real, curiouser and curiouser kind. complex in its simplicity and simple in its complexity. it’s the kind of love that comes around once in a lifetime, once in a timeline across all the multi-universes. and yes – i am crazy… crazy bonkers about you. "but i'll tell you a secret... all the best people usually are."
let's hold hands, older, wiser versions of ourselves and trust each other to finish our story together. "we have so much more life to live together. i love living life with you." there is no one else who i want to write "the story" with. there is no other story that will be as amazing as this one we started writing together.
love,e
p.s - “when the day becomes the night and the sky becomes the sea, when the clock strikes heavy and there’s no time for tea; and in our darkest hour, before my final rhyme, she will come back home to wonderland and turn back the hands of time.”