Kathleen Latham

When we are young, we move through a world of strangers
and wonder when love will come for us.
Wonder if and when and how.

Let them find me, we whisper to the sky.
Let the right one come.

And when love does arrive—finally, miraculously—
it arrives like a hurricane, a tidal wave, a sudden, overwhelming storm
that sweeps us away from where we started, alone on the shore,
and delivers us to horizons barely imagined. Together.

What a gift it is to be found.
What a blessing, in this world of billions,
to link hands and know that you are home.

Still, I wish you this:

May you carry the memory of searching.

May you tuck it in a small, quiet corner of your heart
to remind yourself how long you waited for the someone beside you.
How cherished they are. How perfect for your heart.

May you remember, every day, something good about each other,
something worth fighting for.

May you remember what brought you here, to this moment,
to this promise to join hands and never let go.

Because if falling in love is a hurricane,
staying in love requires harnessing the forces of nature.
It requires agency. Action.
Staying in love requires waking every day to say:

I choose to see the best in you, even when you are at your worst.
I choose to practice kindness and show forgiveness
and remember, daily, how precious you are to me.
I choose to stay.

If love is water, be the moon that draws the tide.
If love is fire, be the wood that feeds it.
If love is a dance, be the music that keeps it going.
If love is a choice, make it, again and again and again,
until your last breath.

Say, I choose you, my love.
Today and every day, I choose you.