Hi,

It’s me again. It seems we keep bumping into each other—one life after the next. This time around, I’ve managed to make it to my 34th birthday and you to your 33rd. I can’t help but wonder how long we have loved each other. Have we always loved each other?

If time and love are infinite, then it seems that this is the logical assumption: I have, in truth, always loved you.

The form you have taken in this life is a beautiful one. But, that is why I am attracted to you and not why I love you. Your generosity, creativity and wild spirit enliven those who come in contact with you. I’m invigorated in your presence, but this is not why I love you. Your struggles echo my own, therefore allowing me to cultivate greater empathy in my life. I’m becoming more aware of existence and mortality due to our exchanges, but this is not why I love you.

The reasons given to love another are but constructs of the mind. Lists of desires are but platitudes sought after by weary hearts that long for sanctuary. I’ve nothing of this nature to offer you.

And I give you this: I love you because I know nothing of love. It is inescapable. It has imposed itself upon me and so to it I surrender.

I do not pretend to understand it and I trust it as my guide.

Our union has had many iterations including separation. The ache of distance between our bodies has broken me open. I stand on razor’s edge between sanity and total delusion only to utter the phrase a thousand times over, “I love you and I always will.”

This phrase is both a mantra and an attempt at forfeiting my limiting beliefs—the very essence of fear.

I can’t say with certainty that you will always love me. To demand more than you are willing to give is to enter into suffering. I’ve suffered enough but not so much that I won’t suffer again.

Fate is what life brings to us and destiny is what we do with it. You have been and are a part of my destiny and I’ve no idea what fate has in store for me. It may be the best. It may be the worst. And I choose to believe every part of this life is in service of my growth and overall well-being.

I love you because you remind me to be well, to take the path that harkens to my heart and tells me to live my own legend.

I love you as I’ve loved others. This is not a contradiction. It is just proof that love is that big. It extends beyond the reaches of our flesh. Love’s expression comes in many variations. It is both conditioned and unconditional. It is complete and unrefined. It is everything I’ve always wanted and nothing I’ve fully realized until meeting you yet again.

In short, I’m finding myself again by rediscovering you. Thank you for giving me somebody to love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pMM4iwC-ag

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Editor: Jenna Penielle Lyons

Photos: elephant journal archives