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*Dear elephant reader: if you’re single & looking for mindful dating or conscious love, try out our lovely partner, MeetMindful.

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To my future girlfriend,

I imagine that by the time you read this, we will have signaled that we’ve taken a liking to each other, and the possibility of a new relationship is looming on the horizon.

I have taken a long and hard journey to get to where I am now, and I know that you too have your own side to tell. But this is what I want to write to you…

I’ve got a child—she was there first. She went through, with me, what most adults at age 40 haven’t experienced.

Understand that I love you, but that I love her too. And I’ll try my hardest to be fair and patient and to let us—all three—grow comfortable and secure with each other. Its a new adaptation and concept for her too, and that’s why I’m asking you to have patience and understanding from your side as well. And together we will help her understand and make her feel secure. That’s how we will become a family.

If you want to love her and be part of her life, please don’t make her love you—and then walk out her life. For she loves in the sincerest form. She too has her heart broken by my previous wrong choices and misplacement of faith and trust.

I have been used. Broken. Loved. Lifted.

I’ve been exhaled and let down by people before you. I have hurt people too—in my journey to get here. But I’m entering this nearing relationship with openness, honesty and all the right intentions.

I’m not going to let the wounds of my past relationships hurt, abuse or reflect on you. It was not you. I’ve learned my lessons, and I’m here to avoid the mistakes from the past. I’m the most pure, honest and open version of myself now, and I have no time, desire or intention to cheat, mess around or take you for a ride.

I want to have a life with you.

I want coffee and poetry and intimacy and laughter. But I also want the tears, the sadness and the things that keep you up in the middle of the night. I want to get into your space, and let my skeletons meet yours. I want to know your fears, and I need you to listen to mine, even if we don’t always understand each other.

I want you. Just you.

I want a friend, a lover—a woman who can stand in storms with me and not let go of my hand. Because I’ll always be there for you, and I want to be your priority as well.

I won’t be like your exes, who still play hide and seek with your heart and mind. I don’t want you holding back from me, because she didn’t appreciate you. I don’t want trust issues, because she burned you. I want just you. And in return, you get to have just me.

I want to argue constructively, and I don’t want any  shouting or swearing or blaming. I want to know that we have differences, but we accept each other’s differences, and that’s what makes us partners.

I want compromise and wit and intelligence. I want silence and comfortable spaces between us, so that we can both learn to love in silence.

But I also want passion and thunder and madness—I want you to tame my demons. I want journeys and photos and sunsets. I want nights with no sleep—just talking and making love, like only the two of us exist.

I want cooking time together in the kitchen and sweet-nothings in my ear. I want to trust you completely—and for you to trust me the same way. I want questions and quests and searching for answers together—until we forget what the question was.

And when I’m weary and worn, I want to come into your arms and find God together, in the hardest and sweetest time of our lives.

I will be your pillar when you need strength, and I will honour your individuality as you would respect mine.

I want inspiration and guidance and involvement in my life, because that is what I’m willing to put on the table for you.

I want all of you—because I’m giving all of myself to you.

And if we can’t have all of this, then we’d better just stop here—and have nothing at all.

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Relephant:

How to Love Me: A Step by Step Guide.

 

Author: Ethel Skye Smit

Editor: Yoli Ramazzina

Photo: Flickr/photographymontreal