12/23/2025

T, Mi Amor,

I think the last time that I wrote to you and shared it with you was about a week ago. Since then a large portion of my writing has been just for me. I think over a period of time it became like that one drawer that we all have which contains the miscellaneous things that can’t really find their own place but have to share space with others. And in the most realest since I think that’s just how life is. Made up of tiny miscellaneous things that all have to share space and attempt to work in harmony with each other.

While in the first few weeks I wrote to you to express my love and hold you in the most tender way possible, what I also realised is the way how our love keeps evolving. You remember the time when we started? We used to be on the phone 24X7. You’d come back to see something I had written and read it with bated breath to realise how special you feel. But off late I think that a lot of that eagerness attenuated. I’m not going to lie, at first it did have me worried. I thought I was doing something wrong. And I thought really hard about what it could be. But then I realised that I was always intense in the way I love. Since the first conversation we ever had. You know when we started talking you said – If I’m dating I’m dating to marry. That made me smile when I heard that. Because I thought of it as – Yes I want to date you, but I want you to know that if I am dating you I want it to turn into something lasting. It wasn’t pressure that you put on me to scream – marry me! But it was the most deepest desire in you to ask for something that will be permanent in a life full of fleeting experiences.

So, if you wanted this kind of intensity and I showed up with just that, then how come things feel so different now? And I let this thought ruminate for many a night. And I came to think of a few things on what is happening here. Deep within the recesses of our mind we keep our innermost desires. The desire to be seen, to be loved, to be chosen. When we meet someone who we believe will be our counterpart or our paramour, we express these desires. But for the first two times, it fails. You know the theory of the three loves that we get in our life?

The first love is the idealistic love. The one that is infused and dripping from stories and movies and expectations. We ignore the red flags and jump in because the idea of love is more important than reality. This love teaches us how to fall in love. It ends because who we think we are and who we hope the other person is are fundamentally different.

The second love is the hard love. I think this has to be the most painful experience whatsoever. This is the love that is intense, consuming, emotionally charged and feels like its has the highest stakes. And we try harder than we ever have more often losing ourselves in the process. This is the love that teaches us boundaries, self worth, what you cannot tolerate and what love is NOT. This is the one that ends because it’s built on lessons rather than alignment. This is the love that leaves scars AND wisdom.

And then comes the third love. The unexpected love. It comes quietly. It doesn’t look like your type. It’s safe grounded and mutual. There’s no games chaos or anxiety. It doesn’t feel like firework every second, it just feels like home. This is the love where we don’t lose ourselves. Where we expand. You remember what I said to you when we were talking on Reddit? I said – Growing together without growing apart. This is the love that gets built on truth and not illusion or trauma.

The irony of it all is, you can’t get to the third love without going through the first two. But when you do come here to the other side, it’s a sense of calm that comes compared to the storms that raged before.

But what nobody tells you, is that while this love arrives to peacefully and in such a stable manner, no one ever prepared for what it feels like when you do receive it. Hundreds of decades of evolution has taught our bodies and our minds to retain memory. Because what happened in the past protects us from experiencing the same pain in the future. So as we experience the kind of love we always wanted it also petrifies you. Because this is the very thing that you always craved. I ask for presence, attunement and availability… and I just get it? You ask for a safe space, being held and to lean on… and you just get it?

What? How does it make sense that we just get what we want? Because now it’s all the more scary. Because it’s not about the fear of failure that plagued us like before. Now we have the fear of success. Because this is the exact same thing that we craved and asked for and got just that in return. And now that we have, we know all the more how precious it is.

And herein lies the paradox which I titled this letter with. This is the love that doesn’t destroy. But this is the love that can’t guarantee it too. Because this is not the love we acquire. It’s the love we get to live out. The one that unfolds as we go and continues to expand encompassing us and everyone else who is a part of us.

For the longest time, I looked at your words, I read between the lines, I analysed the silence between the whispers. I was just looking for one thing. Assurance. Assurance that this will be all we know it will be.

But you can’t give that to me. And I can’t give that to you. All we can do, is live it out together.

So today I say to you, I set out bravely, into the night, knowing only that I do so with your hand in mine. Until we get to live our days in the light.

I take the first step, even though I can’t see the staircase.

Love You Forever & Always,

XOXO,

A