A Letter to the Future Love of My Life

Dear You, 

I say this with the utmost affection and love and respect, but you’re going to have a few very confusing months ahead of you. But you’ll get through them like a champion. You know how I know this? Because the others didn’t.

I started this note with the intention of giving you a few pointers about how to navigate the hot mess that is me. And I just realized something - almost all my pointers are about what the “other guys” said and did or didn’t do and how to avoid the nastiness that followed. I was going to tell you about how I’m a disaster and have trust issues and will mostly need a lot of patience and understanding and how my standards are too high etc - and then i realized that I was only repeating those things that the others have said about me - the others who are NOT the love of my life.

So why try and fit you into a box vacated by people who are just not good enough to be compared with you? This is not to say that you won’t have your set of problems with me, but I’m guessing they will be problems I haven’t thought about or tried to fix already. They will be new, and unique to your set of deal-breakers and nothing I do or say will prepare me for them. What will happen is that when you come into my life, I’ll finally know what it is that everyone has been going on about - love? Pfuitt! What is that? And you will show me and I will be speechless and terrified and awestruck and so grateful that you found me. 

All I can hope for is that I won’t bolt before the words have even settled into their meanings and I hope that I won’t see the actions and the intentions of all the Boyfriends Past in the words that you say. Because you will be the love of my life, and that makes you a pretty unique person. 

So as  favor to myself, I’m going to try and write down my end of the deal, my part of what I think would be an immensely awesome relationship deal. When times are tough - and they will be - I want you to let us take a breather and remind me to read these words again:

1. I promise to trust that you are the love of my life and as such, you have my best interests at heart.
2. I promise to remember that you are what I have been waiting for my whole life, the one who gets me in ways that are scary and fun and nightmare-inducing and joyous.
3. I promise to try and fight fair. Try. In case I don’t, please know that I already know I did something wrong and you can bet I shall apologize very quickly if I haven’t already.
4. I promise that all my apologies will be sincere.
5. I promise that I will improve my cooking. Cooking for someone is one of the ways I express my love for them… and I’d like what I cook to be good for that reason.
6. I promise to always try and tell my truth at any given moment. This is honestly the best I can do because I’m also someone who takes time to process my feelings and to arrive at a concrete truth. But the minute I do, you will know that too.
7. I promise to remember that you’re not perfect and that it’s not a bad thing. The important thing is that you’re just perfect for me - even on those days when you’re trampling every nerve in my body to breaking point. Particularly then.
8. I promise to remind myself that you're not a mind-reader and you deserve to know what I'm thinking and how I'm reaching life-altering conclusions about my.. our life. I promise to try and include you in my mental life.
9. I promise to remember what I loved about you in the early days and what I love about you today and that agreeing with me all the time probably wasn't on that list ever. 
10. I promise to remember to kiss you - like, really kiss you - at least once a day. No carry forwards. Even on days I don't feel like it.
11. I promise to pay you at least one heartfelt compliment everyday. Because sometimes I tend to keep it in my head. I say, "Wow, he is really bright..." and tend to forget that I didn't say it out loud.
12. I promise to be flexible about this list, and keep adding and.. adding.. because I really do want you, and am willing to work at keeping you.

Almost every second day, I’m with some friend or the other at my neighborhood watering hole. And most days, the conversation flows around work, and who's doing whom how well and for how long… And it’s so boring. Like… pointless. And I realized something. I’m so bored with ‘doing’ and being ‘done’. For now, I’m in the mood for romance, for whispered stories in bed, for full body kisses - you know, the kind where your whole body is held and the kiss is deep and all-consuming - and for that feeling of fearlessness…

And I want you to know. You’re it. You’ve given me all these things. And if I'm the love of your life, then we're on the verge of The. Best. Romance. Ever.

It’s just that sometimes, I may need to be reminded. 

Forever, 

Me.