the bravest love

I believe in a great love. It's something I long to have. It's something I must have. I know it will walk into my life when it's supposed to. When I least expect it. When I stop looking for it. 

When I came across these words by Ann Voskamp, it knocked me off my feet and filled my heart with so much faith.

"In his sleep, he finds my hand.

It’s the only one I’ve ever known.

Hand in mine, that wraps around a waist, draws in close, slumbering strength always holding on.

I don’t know how another man’s skin feels.

My grandmother lived that kind of courage. The kind that made a vow and had the bravery to let it age.

The wrinkled faithfulness of monogamy, it can look pedestrian, the kind that finishes well, parades up through the Arc de Triomphe, battle scarred, and the tourists just blithely shuffle by, pigeons taking to oblivious wing. She told me about this.

I remember it, nights like these.

How she said that the bravest love is wildly faithful and it falls hard again every morning. How it puts the toilet seat down and the cap on the toothpaste and winks for those already-won eyes. It knows what we seek may be found in what we already have. And there can always be this — the allure of the vows.

I feel his skin, his hand around me in sleep. We sleep like this this night after years of nights, light of the moon stretching long across our room, the pillows, us growing old in this romanced ordinary. It’s grace and fresh gratitude that can make us strong enough to marvel in the seeming monotony of anything. And the happily married have eyes that look long enough to make the familiar new. When he comes up behind me and hugs me at the stove, I still whisper it to him: “I still can’t really believe I get to be married to you.” Grandma washed Grandpa’s underwear for fifty six years, and she said it was always so good.

Warm it falls on the nape of my neck, his sleep breath, close. I press closer. There’s this beautiful drama’s in a long faithfulness and aged love might be heroic. God knows the passion of a covenant.

His stubble rubs my shoulder.

He makes me, shape and rib, and my head’s full of how we’ve known each other and how he still is mystery and how the want is still all his. We sleep in matrimony and it is holy."

This. This beautiful meshing of words is what puts that reassuring voice in my head that says,

"It's all worth it." 

Every heartache. Every sad song played on repeat. Every blip in timing. Every misguided and misjudged feeling. Every time "baggage" could have stayed behind with the other loose ends and carry-on items. Every person you had to walk away from. Every belief that your world could end if they were stolen away, or worse, chose to leave. 

All of these moments that tug so violently on your heartstrings are all moments that are leading you to great love. To the one person who wants to create new moments. Moments that outweigh all the others. Moments that heal you. Moments that make you believe in good again.

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