You came along at such an unexpected time. That time everyone tells you will eventually come, but you never truly believe will. When you’re still reminiscing through the old photos of you and the one who decided to walk out the door, trying painfully to push them out of your consciousness. When you go home with tequila on your breath more nights than not, because it still doesn’t sting as much as the painful memories do. When you think you are irreparably broken. When no amount of glue, or duct tape, or comforting words from your friends ever seem to be enough to make you feel whole. And when that kind of pain cuts deeper than any knife can, isn’t that what we all want? To feel a little more whole and a little less broken?

And then in some sort of cosmicintervention, there you were.

There you were, and I asked myself a million times how our paths couldn’t have crossed before. How someone like you had been hidden away from me for so long. I quickly decided it was because something as good as you wasn’t supposed to be experienced right away, as I would have needed more time to make my mistakes and have my heart broken before I could be truly ready for you. One look at you, and somehow I knew your smile would ruin me, and it was the beginning of the end of life as I had known it in my past. A life that felt like a blur of meaningless instances from one to the next, now had significance again.

Suddenly, I found myself smiling just a little more for no reason,wondering what you were doing in that exact moment I was sitting and thinking of you. Laughing out loud at your witty and sarcastic comebacks, in a way that I almost forgot I still could. Deliberating in my own mind how something could actually feel this good again. I wanted to dive head first into a love with you that consumed me, and the way you carefully took your time was hard for the impatient person in me to understand in that moment. You made me remember just how blissful and heavenly that feeling of falling for someone was, and how something so good just shouldn’t be rushed. You got to know me, cautiously yet vigilantly. At times you even felt too good to be true.

But there you were, bravely deciding you wouldn’t run, even though every fiber of your being reminded you how terrifying it was to open yourself up to the possibility that I could destroy you — the way someone else once did. I understand that. I was terrified, too. But you stayed, while I tirelessly worked to pick up all the shattered pieces of my soul and put them back together.

I think the reason people feel broken is because when love is lost, a part of us really does break. Like a part of our brain being deprived of oxygen, we find it hard to breathe, hard to get out of bed in the morning, hard to make meaning in what we used to. And then something or someone comes along, and injects a shot of lightning into our lifeless souls, and slowly but surely, we wake from that dream. We learn how to put one foot in front of the other, and see the significance in the smallest of joys. The broken parts of us get the fixing they need. And you did that for me.

Sometimes the light within us dims. And then by fate or chance, or maybe even luck, someone like you shows me that that light can burn bright once again. So thank you for fixing me. Thank you for fixing what I thought was permanently broken. Thank you for not running away when you found me damaged and less than complete. Thank you for reminding me what it feels like to be whole. You may never know how much you truly saved me. But I hope that every day I offer you my mended heart, as dented and bruised as it may be, you know that it’s yours. It’s the most precious gift I could ever give you. And maybe the light that now shines bright in me will help yours burn a little brighter too. 

Extract from: http://thoughtcatalog.com/katie-zeak/2014/08/to-the-one-who-helped-me-love-again/

She doesn’t care about romance. She’s seen enough and she’s been through enough to know that romance to her means something different than it does to the people who produce romantic comedies. 

The people who make movies associate romance with huge diamonds and love at first sight and dramatic declarations of the heart.

But romance in her eyes means you bring over a pizza and the two of you excitedly spend a Friday night in your pajamas. Romance means you tell her she looks cute when she’s sleeping, even though she knows she does not. 

Her version of romance does not involve you proclaiming your love for her in a public place. Instead, the two of you are alone. Probably laying down. Your fingers running up and down her arm absentmindedly, out of habit, unable to stop. And you both stumble over your words, trying to say “I love you” while sounding calm and confident, even though you’re both everything but.

It wasn’t love at first sight for the two of you. Because she knows love at first sight isn’t real. Attraction at first sight is real. Desire at first sight is real. But not love. Love develops out of a series of small and ordinary moments that you don’t even realize are important. You eat cereal together. You drink beer at a pub. You have little conversations throughout the day that reveal more and more about yourselves. And then you’re just in love. Because you know each other for the most genuine, everyday, ordinary versions of yourselves.

The process is not dramatic or noteworthy or interesting to anyone except the two of you. It is not the kind of love that is turned into a reality show watched by millions. But it’s good enough for her. 

Because it’s steady and patient and it gets a little stronger every day.

She’s got thick skin. She’s tough and she’s secure and she’s developed a careful way of incorporating people into her life.

But she likes you enough to bring those defenses down a little bit. You could hurt her. She could hurt you too. These are things she knows because she’s experienced them before. Or she’s watched her friends experience them. Or both.

She’s taking a risk with you. But she’s okay with that. Because she’d rather take a risk and invest herself in something real, rather than sit back and daydream about something that’s one-dimensional and boring and only interesting on the surface.

The movie version of romance used to be enticing. She still watches those movies every once in a while. They’re an easy way to pass two hours. But now she understands them for what they are: movies. Carefully concocted stories where everything falls together seamlessly and enchantingly at the end because they have to be that way, or else people wouldn’t watch them.

Movies take place in under 120 minutes. That means they don’t have time for the kinds of scenes that exist in your everyday relationship, like the comfortable and enjoyable silence you fall into during a 15-minute car ride, or the time you are both awake and laughing at 2 in the morning because you’re tired and punch-drunk. Those types of experiences don’t drive a plot forward. But they do add a little more stability and trust and companionship to your relationship.

Movies are an escape from real life. But she doesn’t need to escape from real life. Because you are real life. She loves you for being real and sincere and normal and genuine. The everyday moments with you give her joy and excitement. Sometimes spectacular things happen, but for the most part, they don’t. And she wouldn’t have it any other way.

She doesn’t need diamonds, as long as she can eat cereal with you every day. 

Excerpt from Thought Catalog.

http://thoughtcatalog.com/kim-quindlen/2015/01/you-think-she-wants-the-love-thats-portrayed-in-the-movies-but-heres-what-she-actually-wants/