I am going to write it out as if I am saying it to you, Heer.
What I want our love to feel like:
I want our relationships to become a safe harbor for our deepest darkest secrets and thoughts. To be shared without fear and to be heard without judgement. To never have to distort the truth to protect each other. To be as naked as the day we were born… and see each other… and to stay.
I want us to respect each other – as individuals first and as partners second. I want us to respect who we were, the choices we made, the mistakes we committed, the intense work that we did to become better individuals. Because all of those things (the best of us and the rest of us) make us who we are, and eventually led us to becoming the versions of who we were when our lives intersected.
I want us to be playful as all hell. I want to smack you on the butt when you are walking by. I want you to jiggle my belly (that I’m trying so hard to get rid of) when I’m brushing my teeth. I want to crack the really stupid dad jokes and abhorrent puns. I want you to laugh with that little snort that makes your cheeks blush so hard. I want you to ask me to pull your finger and not let me escape when you let a methane cloud rip the air.
I want us to co-create our life. With shared purpose. So that we are both building towards something… together. I want us to set out each day to conquer our worlds. But I want us to come back home each night to our warm bed. I want you to be waiting by the porch in those tiny shorts and tank top with a little spring in your step as you see my car pull in and I want you to jump up on me as soon as I step out. I want to carry you over the threshold when you come back home after a long day to a warmly lit home and smell of fresh hot food wafting from the kitchen. I want to go to bed peacefully on the nights that you are away, knowing I will still wake up to you the next morning and nothing would have changed. I want to call you in the middle of the night when I am away because I still can’t contain my want of hearing your voice at lunch time. I want us to grow together, without growing apart.
I want to care for you. I want to hold your hair back when you throw up. I want to feed you fresh hot soup when you are sick and your nose is stuffy. I want to kiss you then despite you trying to protect me. And I want you to put your arms around me and help me up when my back gives away. I want you to help me pick up the spoon when my joints are frozen. I want to feel your warm hands in mine when they are old and wrinkled and cold.
What I want to build our love on:
I want us to respect each other, especially during conflict and I want us both to take mutual responsibility in the repair.
I want us both to exercise our autonomy and draw healthy boundaries, but I want us to share how decisions get made. How we handle money. How we balance individuality that each person retains.
I want to share a strong bond of sexual and emotional fidelity. But I want to be able to freely tell you what I will never tolerate again. And I want to fiercely promise what I will never do again.
I want us to to look each other in the eye and tell each other what happens when either person violates something important.
How I will know this relationship is real:
I will NOT define this relationship by – how intensely I feel, how much I sacrifice, how beautiful the potential is and how desperately either of us fears losing the other.
I will base it observable behavior like – are we choosing one another, are we having the difficult conversations, are our promises becoming behavior, are we both doing our individual work, are we disagreeing without threatening the bond, can I remain myself while loving you, can you remain yourself while loving me, and does this relationship we actually live resemble the relationship we are describing.
See me clearly, let me see you clearly, with neither of us disappearing in order to make the other stay, and with our eyes open, we keep choosing each other. We come Home.
