Would It Scare You If I Said That I Can Imagine My Life With You?

Would it scare you if I told you that I can see myself being with you for a very long time? And the only reason I don’t say forever is because I really don’t even know what that word means to me. Would it scare you if I told you that I’ve never felt this way about someone else? That I have never loved someone else at all, let alone loved someone the way I love you.

Would it scare you if I told you that I can see myself walking down an aisle with you at the end of it? And I’ve never even imagined myself as a bride before, because I’ve always been so against the tradition of weddings, of over-fluffed white dresses and princess tiaras and borrowing something blue or something new, or however that saying goes. And I’ve always said a man could tie a blade of grass around my finger, that the clarity of a diamond doesn’t reflect the strength or depth of your love. And even though I can’t see myself in a giant white dress or freaking out about what kind of centerpieces will be in the middle of tables that seat a bunch of people I probably don’t even know. Even in being annoyed at all of these silly little traditions and even though I can’t see myself embracing any of them, I can see you as my husband. I can see you being the man that my father is to my mother, and the man that your father is to your mother. I can see that for us. For you and for me. I see little pieces of us in them.

Would it scare you if I told you that I can imagine us starting a family of our own? That I think about how if the universe decides I’m lucky enough to have a child you’ll be an excellent father. That I think about the tradition of my family’s culture and how I’ll name my first daughter (our first daughter) after my grandmother. That I can imagine you teaching our child right from wrong. That I can see you accepting them for who they are and teaching them to accept others for who they are just the same. That I can picture you loving them with a kind of love you didn’t know existed within you. Would it scare you if I told you I hope our children turn out to be as good a person as you are?

Part of me hopes it does scare you, all of it, because it scares me more than anything. I’m terrified. And I’m not terrified that you’ll leave, but I’m terrified I’ll make you leave. That I’ll get in my own way and somehow mess this all up. And if I do mess this up, it doesn’t scare me that I won’t have any of those things I just mentioned above, a husband, children, someone to grow old with, not having those things doesn’t scare me. Those are just ideas, hypotheticals. What scares me is that I won’t have you. Because I wouldn’t need those things if it meant I had you. A wedding, a family, none of it means anything unless it’s with you.

And I’m terrified that all of this, every happy memory, every sad one, everything we’ve done for each other, everything we’ve been through together, everything we’ve shared, and the things we finally revealed to each other after keeping them so close, so concealed, I’m not scared that you’ll be the reason it all disappears, I’m scared that I will be.

So I hope it does scare you when I say that I can imagine my entire life with you, because if it doesn’t then this all isn’t as real as we thought it was. Because real love is scary. I’m scared too. I’m scared of writing this. I’m scared of you reading this. I’m scared of the way I feel about you. Basically everything about you scares me, everything about us scares me, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.