Here we are 12 years ago. 🙂
Dan and I are celebrating our 12th anniversary of being a couple tomorrow, and so I’ve been thinking about love even more than usual.
I feel like I have had two lives: before Dan and with Dan.
The person that I was before Dan was hopeful but cynical – yearning but jaded – a dreamer but not a believer.
While I always wanted to believe in love, I somehow always seemed to feel let down by it. The love that I had built up in my dreams never seemed to come to be in my waking life. The relationships that I had before Dan were a mix of okay to not-so-good to downright horrible.
My heart had been broken. I had broken hearts. And the common thread throughout each relationship was that they never felt completely right. I was always left wanting more. I always had one foot out the door – waiting for something (someone) better.
I was waiting for Dan. My soul knew it. And I just needed to catch up to that knowing. I’ve spent every single day for the past 12 years living in complete gratitude for this beautiful man’s presence in my life.
While I knew that I loved him 12 years ago, I now see that it was just a tiny blip of the deep, soulful that we have built together through the years.
We have spent the past 12 years growing together, honoring and cherishing each other, and loving, loving, loving one another. We are rarely apart. He is my soul’s other half.
What I have come to realize is that our love brought me home. It led me straight to my soul – to the person I had always been but had forgotten. Our love gave me a foundation, a truth, and a knowing that I never even knew existed.
Each “I love you,” each hug, each compliment, each token of appreciation, each look into each other’s eyes, each kind gesture, each loving word through the years has built our house of love.
Because of this deep, soulful love that Dan and I share, love has overflowed from my heart and seeped into every part of my life. Our loving foundation continues to give me the courage to extend this love to each of you. My heart is wide open now. I am now wide awake. I have come home.
Because of love.
Truly.
And I now see and know deep within my soul that love has the power to bring all of us home.
I know that this can sound cheesy. I know that to a jaded heart, this sounds like complete nonsense. Remember that I was cynical once, too. So I get it.
But I know, know, know that this is real and that this is true and that this deep, soulful love exists if you allow yourself to open up to it.
And it doesn’t have to be with a partner. It could be with a dear friend or a close family member. Or even a sweet pet.
Dan was my saving grace. His love not only brought me home, but it also led me to each of you.
And I will spend the rest of my life living in complete gratitude for his pure, sappy, utterly everything love.
Please allow yourself to be opened up and swept away with love. Allow love to bring you home.
Your soul is waiting. Your heart is waiting. We are all waiting.
Hugs,
I’m a self confessed jaded woman when it comes to love and relationships. I totally feel what you went through before Dan. But recently I came to a similar conclusion to what you wrote and I’m so thankful for that confirmation. Love brings us home. I guess at the end of the day, there is a reason for the saying “home is where the heart is”.
Hello Jodi,
I am so deeply feeling the love that you have in your heart that is spilling out into our Universe and into my heart. That was so beautiful and deeply felt by me. Before I even read your message I looked at the beautiful photograph of the two of you and said out loud with great conviction, “Ah now that is what Love looks like”. I am moved to tears of happiness for you both but weep tears of sadness for myself because, I long for the love you speak of and believe that it does in fact exist. Just not for me. I am no longer a silly girl fantasising about a love that I will likely never have at this point in my life. And though that is okay, it is not okay at the very same time. Because, the heart wants, what the heart wants. Sometimes we just aren’t meant to have that kind of love but yet, we can learn to love ourselves right where we are and grow that love inside of us and give it to others. I like to think of it as that bright, bright shining light that God placed in each of us to grow and nurture, so that we could shine and share it with those that happen to cross our path on our journey’s in life. And to give them some much needed love, compassion or support so they can heal themselves. I just try and focus on the love God gave me and take my gifts and talents and make them count for others. I am feeling such blessing today for you Jodi. You are such a beautiful light shining and giving to the world and making it count too! Love and Light to you and your husband. Oh, and you are so right, Love does bring you home <3 <3 <3
Thank you, Jodi, for this beautiful post; for your infinite, eternal love; and for being the best HOME I could ever have. <3!!!
I love this, Jodi – my heart smile brightened as I read, until I was literally smiling! I love the energy of love – I often say I am in love with world (I am). And one day I hope to experience a relationship like you and Dan share. Blessings to you both!
Oh Jodi, this post is so heartfelt and beautiful. I feel very luck as well, as my relationship with my husband is growing more loving every year. I always thought love between a couple would fade over time, but it doesn’t have to be like that.
Happy anniversary guys, you two look great together! I can definitely relate about dividing my life in before my husband and after!
Awesome post, keep writing Jodi!