I love you on purpose

I am a hopeless romantic. I relish being concerningly obsessed and disgustingly in love. My instagram bookmarks are full of poem excerpts that resonate with me. There’s something beautiful about having such a powerful emotion, one that can drive you absolutely mad, and knowing it is not a unique experience in the slightest. Knowing that this feeling of complete devotion, of helplessness, of yearning, that all of it is essential to the human experience.

Now, if this is who I am, why do I choose unbelievably unromantic men? I don’t know. But Dakota doesn’t really like when I try to be poetic. One of the most beautiful lines I’ve come across was something along the lines of, “when you die I’ll envy the soil that gets to hold you.” I was told I couldn’t use this in my wedding vows. I don’t remember my vows. I worked really hard to dig deep and allow myself to be vulnerable in front of so many people, I made myself mentally break out of cringe prison and not care that my family would hear me be… lovey. But, all for not, he told me it was too much. So they were scrapped and re-written into something like “you’re my best friend,” or whatever.

One of my favorite quotes is painfully simple; “I don’t believe in soulmates. I love you on purpose.” I don’t know why this one hit me so hard. This isn’t all by accident. This isn’t fate. This is me. I put in the work. I got us here. I have loved you so deeply and so committedly and so pointedly that we are here now. You didn’t stumble into love, I found you. And I decided you were worth loving. You were worth the effort. You were worth the heartache. Do not downplay my efforts nor how deserving you are of them.

I’m sorry that you have been loved haphazardly in the past. That you are used to affection that is convenient and “devotion” that is fickle. But to question my love, to think it will disappear, is an insult to me. This isn’t a roll of the dice or a flip of a coin. My admiration isn’t an ever changing breeze you’re not privy to knowing the future of. I have and will continue to love you on purpose.