Love wins

When my old blog posts pop up on my facebook feed i love to read them. I marvel at the girl I was back in high school, so wordy and wise. I wonder if i lost some of that along the way, or if its still in there somewhere.
I believed I was destined to never experience love. I was broken, fragmented. I had been used and abused by too many guys and victimized by my own heart one too many times and all of it had left me very cynical towards the idea of love. It was out there, just not for me. For happy girls, for pretty girls, for girls with minds less full of noise.
As i approach this season of marriage, I find myself thinking about all those other loves. About the way i threw myself into them like an acrobat on a tight rope dives into a cup of water. They were never enough to hold me, but I told myself if I tried hard enough they could be.
I remember how it felt like my skin was too much for me, how I would scratch at it just trying to find some relief. I remember all the times I told myself this would be it. And i remember the last time, when it felt like my heart was literally falling out of my chest and all I could do was scream. I felt empty. There are still stories there, still words that can be written about my years of searching for love like it was water in a desert. But thats not the story I want to tell.
In 18 days I say I do to the man I love with every piece of me. All those pieces I believed made me broken but really were just in the wrong hands.
He found me not long after I had given up on love for the last time. I wasn't looking for him, or maybe i was. Either way I know those early months felt hopeful and dangerous and exhilerating. I waited, for a really long time, for the crash. For him to decide i was too much, too broken, to leave. I didn't want to be in love but at the same time I wanted it more than anything. I thought he would fix me. But in the end it was never his job to fix me, or to love me. I am healing me. I am loving me.
He is the ocean. He believes in me. He makes me feel whole. He reminds me that I need to love myself first.
I never wanted to get married. But I do know I want to love him well, for as long as i can.
I wrote in my notes a while ago that I love him because all the others told me what I wasn't. He tells me over and over again who I am.
In 18 days I get to be his wife.
The story is still being written. Love wins. Forever and ever Amen