Unicorn. in Phoenix

Love is a funny, fickle thing. Of course I’ve been in love before. I mean, right? Of course I was in love with the 2 men I had children with… wasn’t I? Of course I was in love with the man from across the ocean that I spent over 7 years with and only 4 years actually being on the same continent with… right?

Yeah, no. I don’t think so. I think I’ve never known what love really is. I think I convinced myself that I was in love, that what I was feeling was exactly what being in love entailed. I think that I had some romanticized idea of love, a movie or romance novel idea of what it was supposed to be. Or maybe I just never felt loved unconditionally by anyone as a child and so, as an adult, I thought that love meant conditions. It meant making concessions, compromising, altering who I was as a person to be what someone else needed me to be in order for them to love me. Love has always meant losing a part of myself.

I think what I’m feeling now, for the first time in my life, is genuine love. No concessions, no apologies, no compromising who I am to please someone. I can just be me and I don’t have to feel awkward or weird about who I am. I can just be and still be loved and valued for everything that I am. I think this is what has been missing my entire life. I didn’t know how to be loved. And I didn’t know who I was or who I was supposed to be because I was constantly adjusting myself to someone else’s liking, or my perception of what they would like.

Now I know who I am and now I know I don’t ever have to adjust myself to someone else’s liking again.

Now I know what genuine love, unconditional love, feels like. I know what it’s like to both give and receive it. This is a new world, a brilliant new life. I have never experienced utter contentment like this. I have never felt so unbound. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced quite this level of gratitude before. I’m just so grateful to have had what feels like parts of my soul awakened, unlocked, unchained, set free.

You know who you are. I love this. I am in love with us. Whatever this is, it’s magical. I’m in love with us, both individually and together in this beautiful thing we’ve found. I told you that you shine bright like the sun, and you do! Your light is blinding! But now? Now I shine bright like the sun, too. I’ve never been able to see my own sparkle before, my own light. You’ve opened my eyes to so many things and I’m looking forward to all of the other things you still have to show me, and all of the things we can do and see and face together. You make me feel invincible, and loved and valued and all the good things. I’m so grateful to be a part of your life and to have you be a part of mine. I couldn’t have asked for a better human, a better friend, or a better lover. Thank you for waking me up the rest of the way, thank you for being the icing on my cake, my missing puzzle piece, for showing me a world I didn’t know existed - or a world I didn’t believe I deserved to be a part of. Thank you for your beauty, your kindness, your friendship, and your love. And thank you for accepting me as I am, for no awkwardness, and for no apologies. You are an amazing, magical creature.

You are my unicorn.