The past three weeks plus have been indescribable by one particular emotion. They have been so freaking hard and sad but also filled with complete love and understanding. The love of my life has shown me more understanding and love than I deserve and the world has continuously given me reasons to quit the fight. Today I just want to write. I have had such a hard time writing that I got the urge and decided it didn’t matter, the topic that came to my heart is what I was going to write about and it’s here, it is love.
I am blessed beyond measure, and I hope everyone on the planet gets to feel this way as we all deserve to know what it feels like to be unconditionally loved and adored for exactly who you are no sugar coating needed! The love it takes to love someone like me, has to be immense and truly unrelenting like a waterfall that constantly has a flow of water that never loses pressure. I don’t know how he does it. Part of me thinks I don’t deserve love, but the other side knows I deserve to be loved this way. I fight a constant battle in my brain to convince myself I deserve to be loved. For so long I thought I didn’t and I settled for what I thought love was. I had no clue…. I can’t describe the night and day difference from what settling felt like to what love feels like. I know that I am the one that convinced me I wasn’t worthy of love, but I also know I am the one able to break it so I can let myself be loved beyond measure. And friends this love, this love is beyond anything I could ever imagine.
Ryan and I met on a stroke of luck, both going through similar situations, we were introduced to each other as potential friends to help cope with the hard situations at hand. We texted for about 3 months before we ever met. Our texts were very generic, until they weren’t because the emotional parts of our situations were easier to share with someone going through the same thing. We talked about meeting up for a while in the last few weeks of texting, but both were too chicken to actually commit to meeting someone else that we had some kind of connection with. I would always say nah, he is just a guy going through a hard time, there is too much emotional baggage for this to lead to anything…. Boy was I wrong.
Finally I convinced him to meet me in the most non-intimidating way ever, I told him to come visit me at my house. Yeah, he could have been some serial killer that shoved me into the creepy crawl space of my house, but at the time, who cared, it was just another opportunity to meet another person that had similar issues and needed someone to talk to. I can’t fix my own issues, but I am good at listening to others! Let me listen to you and I can get out of my problems for a while.
I found myself the least nervous I have ever been meeting someone new which was different. I had just got done working out, I was in shorts and a tank top with a ponytail. We were just friends anyways, who cared what I was wearing or looked like, this was friends putting a face to a name. Nothing more…. The instant I saw him I knew I was toast. He was more handsome than I had originally seen via social media, and I was instantly drawn in. I knew I wanted to know more about him than just what our current situations were, I wanted to hear about the real man he was, the deeper side of him.
The first night we met, we talked for 3+ hours sitting on my front porch swing. I was upfront with him right off the bat about myself. I had pretended to not be me for so long I was not going to play that game any longer. I am Priscilla, I have depression, I take exercising too seriously, I am moody, and I am set in my ways, but I will give you the world if you are someone I care about. The first night we met I told him about SPAZ and all the things that were most important to me and I remember thinking he always had the best questions and seemed to really want to get to know me on a personal and even deeper than just what people generically know. I remembered thinking he was so intriguing and I liked to hear him talk and I liked the way he articulated his words. It made me want to listen to every word he had to say.
When he left that night, he gave me a hug, and it was the best hug I think I have ever had in my life. It was just this big and overwhelming embrace that I hadn’t had for so long, it reminded me that someone actually cared, even if it was just a little. The next day I had a shitty day and when he asked if he could help, I mentioned that one of those hugs would be nice…. Within 30 minutes he was standing at my door to wrap me in his arms again. He literally drove just to give me a hug and left…. This is unheard of! What kind of man does that?! Not one I have ever met….
We met for the first time on a Wednesday night, and the following Sunday we had plans for dinner together and a little more time to talk. I already knew there was something here. It’s that kind of connection you just can’t believe is actually creating its own path, and you are completely out of control of the path your heart is taking, trying to stop it was out of the question. He came over and I just remember him just being so polite. He pulled my chair out for me and washed the dishes as soon as we were done with dinner and was so appreciative of having the meal cooked for him. After dinner, we sat outside on the porch staring at the stars and admiring shapes and figures in the trees around my house. And then it happened, that magic moment that Hotel Transylvania calls a “zing”, Ryan looked at me like I had never been looked at before in my life. He stared right into my soul and gave me instant hope that love was real…. I knew at that exact moment, the third time we had met in person, that I was going to love him for a very long time, and that I definitely wasn't going to let this go.
After that night we were together every 2 or 3 nights, dinner or movie or just talking on the porch, it didn’t matter we just wanted to be together. I remember telling him “I almost just said the forbidden L word”, and him not being scared of it…. The feelings were growing mutually, and I was scared as neither of this were looking for this whatsoever when we came into it. We were looking for a friend and in return we became the closest best friends anyone could ever be plus we found the ultimate prize… we found true love.
In August, I was first diagnosed with depression, plus the thoughts of having more mental illnesses but needing a referral to have them diagnosed. We had already been seeing each other a little while at that point, and he had walked right into the fire of someone completely falling apart. In the midst of trying to be strong and get help, he was always by my side.I remember the note he left me after a huge bipolar relapse that had me struggling to get out of bed almost every morning…. It said a lot but most importantly it said, “We are going to fight this together,” and I have never had that. There were days I was told if I didn’t promise to be with someone that I was going to be sent to the hospital, and it was never a burden for him, he stepped right up and said here is our game plan, let’s fight this. I can’t tell you how much that means to someone when their decision making skills aren’t at the highest functioning level or to someone who feels unlovable in the moments of despair to be shown unconditional love and complete understanding.
We have had our hard days through this journey together, but we have also celebrated a lot of victories and created incredible memories despite the heartaches we have also faced. In our time together I learned what love is supposed to look, feel, and act like. This love is beyond what my wildest imagination could ever picture…. This love is truly incredible.
Having mental illness also fills you with a lot of guilt when it comes to love. I see this perfect man, doing any and everything to make my life better, happier, and brighter and I have days where I can’t be happy. I beat myself up so much. Look at this man, look at this love, look at this life! What more could you ask for! It is a constant battle of trying to show Ryan how much I love him, how much he means to me, and how happy he does make me, despite what my disease tries to take away from us some days. If it is hard for me to love someone else, I can’t imagine how hard it is to love me. I can’t imagine what the bad days are for him or how he feels when he has done everything right and I am still sad. This life and love is not for the faint of heart.
So to my love…. Here’s the beginning of our love story…. There was a perfect man, who walked in right in time to save a brave girl from self destructing and gave her the love most princesses dream of, so in return, she loved him the most he has ever been loved in his life because he deserves it all. I can’t thank you enough for the things you have done for me. I can’t thank you enough for all the long talks, crying hugs, back rubs, instant appearances, and supportive texts and calls. You are the man of any woman’s dreams, but I’m glad it is mine you chose. You make everyday a better place to live. You make the sunshine on me everyday no matter the weather. You taught me what it is like to be loved. You have taught me what my worth is and how to see myself in a different light. You have shown me more things about life in such a short amount of time, than I have ever known. You give me a safe place and a place of complete peace and rest. You give me hopes for the future and hopes of a family. You give me glimpses of things I have always wanted every single time we are together. I will never be able to repay you for all you have done for me or for how much you mean to me, but I will love you with every ounce of my being until we are taken from this earth plus infinity….. You are my most favorite human <3
Our Story ;sn’t Over
P<3