True Love

I have a message from Blake saying, “For the first time in my life, I feel like the person I love loves me equally. I was afraid that was never going to happen. You are the best friend and lover I have been looking my whole life for.”

I was terrified that wasn’t going to happen for me either. Until I met Blake.

The summer before I started dating Blake (while I was going through a breakup), I had a philosophical discussion about love with one of my good friends. I had recently read a book where one character said that in every relationship there is a lover and a person who is loved. Although these roles might not be outwardly apparent, at the root of every relationship, these two roles always exist. After my friend and I argued back and forth about this a bit, we decided that it was basically true.

After thinking a lot about those two roles, I resigned myself to believing I was always going to be the lover in a relationship. I could never picture myself being truly happy with someone if I felt like I didn’t love him with my entire heart. Sure, there’s more “safety” in being the one who is loved, but that didn’t matter to me. If I don’t feel like my life would be incomplete without a person, there would be no reason for me to be with him.

That same friend talked to me the other day about him being the “lover” in his relationship and how that was frustrating at times. I paused before I started to empathize with him. I began thinking about Blake and my relationship and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out which one I was, the lover or the one who was loved. Did our relationship not reflect those two roles that I had been so positive every relationship has?

And that’s when I realized for certain that I had found true love with Blake Norvell.

“For the first time in my life, I feel like the person I love loves me equally.” How beautiful to have experienced that with someone. Although the tragedy for me really lies in how short of a time Blake and I had together, at least those months were filled with the realest relationship I’ve ever had. I feel incredibly sad today, but incredibly lucky.