“I fell in love with him. But I don’t just stay with him by default as if there’s no one else available to me. I stay with him because I choose to, every day that I wake up, every day that we fight or lie to each other or disappoint each other. I choose him over and over again and he chooses me.” ~ Quote Forest

Perhaps neither of us ever really had a choice in the matter, but I still choose you.

I chose you from the minute my eyes met yours, creating waves of change that would take years to truly see to fruition.

I chose you simply because there was never a moment when my heart could stop me from doing what I knew deep down I needed to do.

And no matter how far our paths took us away from one another or how deep the forest grew in darkness around us, I knew that I needed to see exactly why you came into my life—I needed to see if yours was the love I’d spent my whole life looking for.

I chose you even as I walked away from you, because it was never about running away but instead about finding my way to you all along.

At one point, I’d thought love was a one–way street, but now I know that it is much more complicated than that. Often times we need to pass several crossroads before we are ready to meet one another half-way and see where our journey will lead us together.

Now I know that my heart was yours, long before I was aware of it. Maybe I didn’t always have a choice in loving you, but I did have a choice as to whether I wanted to admit it to myself or not.

I had a choice whether I would choose you or accept the salty tears of a broken heart to keep me warm.

In the end it doesn’t really matter which happens. Truthfully, choosing you is the only option I can live with.

You got under my skin darlin’, in a way that tingled and drove me slightly insane.

It was deliciously tormenting to feel the pulse of desire rise off your skin, knowing that the thing I wanted most was within reach, yet it wasn’t time to touch you in the way I wanted.

I didn’t have a choice whether my heart fell a hundred feet for you or if I wanted to lick you down and feel you tremble inside of me—I did still make the conscious choice to choose you.

I chose you when it wasn’t easy, when the world felt stacked against us.

When it seemed impossible.

I chose you even though it wasn’t always right and regardless of how we ended up here in this moment of pink, hazy desire lingering like a summer sunset, I still would do it all over again.

Because in choosing you, I was also choosing myself.

The more I chose you, the more I honored myself and my true identity. But it also seemed that the more I sighed deeply knowing that regardless of what you were to me I always possessed the choice to guide what we would grow into.

We can’t help who we love or who we feel chemically drawn to, but we always have the choice whether we act upon it or not.

Because regardless what may spark between us, we’ve always had the free will to decide whether we were going to ignore it or instead join hands and see how powerful we can be together.

And I chose you, even though at times it seemed that I was foolish for doing so. I chose you because sometimes we get to a point where there is no other option than to see what happens if we decide to give ourselves the gift of the thing we want most.

I didn’t have a choice when it came to loving you, but I did have a choice if I would tell you that I did.

I never chose to want my desire for you to be as electric as it is, but each time that I reached out and touched you I made the choice. No matter how many times we met under the guise of whispering illicit promises, it was just never enough.

I never really had a choice in the matter of loving you—but I still choose you anyway.

I chose you because something about you was just different, and whether it ends in forever or even tomorrow it will always be a path that I needed to take.

At times we are presented with a choice that seems wrong or complicated, so we ignore it and continue on. Yet, when a choice comes around again and again, we are forced to see that maybe it keeps coming back for a reason.

Maybe it wasn’t the choice that was all wrong, but how we were going about it.

Because no matter how many times something comes back, if we aren’t ready or willing to approach it differently, then it will always turn out like before.

That’s why this time I’m not saying I don’t have a choice in the matter, but that I choose you.

I choose you today and tomorrow, for however long that I love you.

Because not choosing you was just never an option.

Author: Kate Rose

Image: flickr/Courtney Carmody

Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock; Nicole Cameron