byChrisWhite – 2014

They speak of true love with the breathless certainty of children naming stars, as though the words themselves conjure something celestial. True love. Soulmate. One and only. A lexicon of longing dressed in sugar and sentiment, passed from mouths that have yet to taste the bitterness beneath sweetness. I’ve heard it all my life, the way one hears stories of buried treasure or cities paved in gold, not lies, but not truths either. A romance of belief.

But love, real love, the kind that cleaves to bone and endures the erosion of years, is seldom so pretty. It is mess and ache and recognition. It is standing across from someone, not in candlelight but in the harsh flicker of morning, and saying yes. Again. And again.

What they don’t tell you, what they never tell you, is that real love doesn’t shimmer. It doesn’t glide down the staircase wearing chiffon or come with orchestras tucked behind moonlight. It shows up with cracked hands and a grocery list. It forgets the anniversary. It remembers the medicine. It’s the person you keep saying yes to even when your feet hurt, even when the light in the kitchen flickers like it’s got one wire left holding the whole house together.

Marriage comes early for many, earlier than it ought. Not from wisdom, but from gravity. A need to escape. To conform. To belong. We rush toward rings and mortgages and monogrammed towels with the fervor of the frightened, not the faithful. We marry to flee, to match our friends, to silence the question of what’s next.

But you cannot know what you need to know about marriage before you know who you are. You can’t know who to love before you’ve looked yourself in the mirror long enough to flinch. And I hadn’t. I mistook flint for fire, adrenaline for affection. I dated like someone listening to a scratched record, catching just enough rhythm to dance, never enough melody to understand the song. I didn’t know what mattered. 

I mistook chemistry for compatibility, attraction for affection. Charm doesn’t feed you soup when you’re sick. Beauty doesn’t hold your hand in a police precinct. Chemistry won’t tell you when you’re wrong and stay anyway. I dated with eyes half-open, ears filled with static. I learned slowly, painfully, what mattered. Not charm, nor beauty, nor any of the things I once believed essential.

I learned to listen. To endure. To forgive. And to walk away. I learned. Slowly. Painfully. Like a new pair of knees learning stairs after surgery.

And when love did come to me, it wore no perfume. It did not rush the stage. It came barefoot, holding a Tupperware of leftovers, a Chanel West-Coast kinda laugh, and an armful of joy. Emily. She did not arrive like thunder, but like the hush after thunder, the stillness that says the storm has passed, and you’re safe now.

True love requires excavation. Not of the other, but of self. You must dig down through the silt of habit and inheritance, through the stories you’ve told yourself, through the ruins left by those who hurt you and those you hurt. You must find the raw thing beneath. The core. And only then are you fit to give it to someone else.

Most people do not marry their soulmate. They marry who they need at the time. Some are lucky, and time makes that person right. Others learn, too late, that need and love are not the same.

Emily did not fall into my life like thunder. She arrived quiet. Certain. I recognized her not by fireworks but by silence. By peace. She laughed like someone who’d survived something. I recognized her by that sound. It unspooled something inside me I hadn’t even known was tangled.

And even then, she was not ready. She did not recognize me in return. Not right away.

It took her a year to see what I already knew. A year of patience, of restraint. Of believing, absurdly, that if you water a thing slowly, it will bloom when it’s ready. No sooner. No louder. But inevitably.

When she came, it was not dramatic. It wasn’t in a flurry of violins. She simply set her bag down beside mine. Inevitable.

She brought with her no dowry but kindness. Generosity. A joy that filled rooms. And an uncanny skill with twice-baked potatoes. I offered her myself. Me. Earnest. Uneven. A man held together by duct tape and sincerity. 

She loved the uneven part.

Seven years now. Seven years of things no preacher mentions. Seven years of things no greeting card prepares you for. Cake frosting mishaps. Police raids. Lost ventures. Campaign chaos. Kissing in stairwells. Crying in parking lots. Breakfast in bed. Her laughter never leaves me. It’s the sound I live by. My daily absolution. 

We do not fear jealousy. Or drama. Or showmanship. We do not post declarations or count likes. We do not swim in doubt. There is no performance, no mask. We live. We fit. Not perfectly. But precisely. Like shoes broken in by years and shaped to your stride. 

We grow older. Softer. Wiser. And still she laughs at my worst jokes, the ones that earn groans from friends and silence from strangers. That laughter is church. Is covenant. 

Love, true love, is not a miracle. It is a choice repeated daily. It is not loud. It does not strut. It endures. It forgives. It builds like moss on a stone. Like breath fogging a window. It grows stronger not from rarity, but from repetition. From choosing again. And again. And again.

And if you find it, hold it. Not tightly, but with care. Don’t question it. Don’t wait for fireworks. 

Just hang your hat right there. 

And stay.