What if love isn’t anything like how we envision it unfolding?

What if love shows up in a rush and leaves us feeling overwhelmed and blushing?

What if love really is sweaty palms and increased heart rates instead of the steady calm in which we might be used to?

Meeting him had my heart racing and I’ll be the first to admit that if it wasn’t for feeling like it would burst out of my chest at the mere sight of him, I would have never followed its messages.

He left me breathless and speechless and even after all this time I am still left feeling like I fall more in love with him every day. His smell, his embrace, the ways in which he speaks feels like poetry to my soul; the more we get to know ourselves, the more we seem to inevitably get to know each other.

He has shown me what love could be.

To me, love is no longer how well a man performs on dates as he tries to impress me with dinners and flowers, but rather how real he is willing to get with himself. I don’t so much care about the surface of appearance, but rather how willing a man is to go deeply within. His motivation to reveal the parts of himself that he has never shown to anyone else feels like honey between my thighs and it is the essence of what keeps me coming back.

Loving him soul-deep meant loving myself that way as well.

Because my truth is that our connection taught me that my very bones deserved to be cherished.

Through this love, I learned that every hair on my head should be revered and that every spot on my skin deserves to be kissed. Through him, I learned that I deserve to have someone stare at me as though my essence holds the sun and the moon. I learned that I deserve to feel like the earth as we know it would cease to exist if I were to ever parish. I learned that my wrists deserve to be kissed, and the scent of my skin inhaled with deep appreciation.

He showed me that my softness is lovable and that the way in which my hair falls wildly around my face as I sleep should be adored. I learned that I deserve to feel as if the very breath that floods my body is to be respected.

Our soul-deep love taught me the importance of loving myself for the entirety of that which I am—from the mask I wear to the world, all the way down to the smallest capillary flooding my system with life.

This love showed me that I deserve to know that the way in which I move throughout my day, my laugh, and my seriousness…it all demands respect.

Our love taught me that I deserve eyes of love falling upon me as I make dinner or brush my teeth.

I learned to see the goddess staring back at me in the mirror.

Love can show up for us in ways we never dreamed possible. Though it would seem that love in the traditional sense of the word externalizes our experiences—I have found that only when we can love all the places within ourselves, can we love all of another.

It is my belief that sometimes love can teach us about becoming whole. Love can teach us the value of our own messiness and that sometimes it is only through the sorting of the mess that we learn more about ourselves.

We are then given an opportunity to see that all of the love that we have held for another was really just a clever guise for all of the love we can cultivate within.

So, what if sometimes we do not meet our forever love in a calm and peaceful state, but rather through the seeming chaos of passionate, deep, soul-love, and the willingness to see ourselves in all of our beautiful mess?

Because wasn’t it Whitney Houston who sang that the greatest love of all happened within her?

Unpopular as it may seem, my greatest love of all (the one I found within me) was only discovered through the man who made me feel indescribably alive through the rush of blood to my face, through the pounding of my heart against my chest, and through my soul feeling like it had been set ablaze.

The man who still gives me butterflies to this day.

So to the women reading this, I’m not suggesting to stay wrapped in the arms of a toxic dynamic.

My hope is that if love shows up with a rush of blood to your face and excitement in your chest that you won’t disregard it automatically.

I truly believe that our souls speak to us through the heart, so when yours is hammering up against its sternum to the point where you feel like it will break free of its cage like a prisoner trying to break out of his cell, it is communicating a deeper message—one that is meant to help you grow.

I hope you choose to listen.

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