“Love Is Where You Find It”

Kurt Vonnegut said that, and I happen to agree.

Last week, Chris and I celebrated the year that’s past since our first date. We met at the same restuarant where we met for the first time last year. He wore the same shirt that he wore last year. I wore something a little bit saucier, because he’s earned it. It was low key, it was mushy, it was a deep breath.  The perfect representation of us… of the love that we’ve found.  Easy, loving, relieving.

If I’m grateful for anything in the world, it’s for him.  In the past year, I grazed against the darkness of my past, as tends to happen when you’re a human.  He stared down the barrel of it with me, until I was ready to acknowledge for the thousandth time that it was exactly that. Dark. And in the Past.  He listened patiently as I planned out my future.  Tomorrow, the next day, the next year, five years from now.  He humored me.  He was good to me, gracious with me, and excited to hear how my plans have changed, are changing… how I’m growing, spinning out wildly into the woman that I’m becoming.  He’s loved me for the woman that I am, always steady in the here and now.  He reminds me to trust in, and find joy in, the here and the now.  Can I get a deep sigh and a hell yes, y’all?  Love is really (really) a beautiful thing.