Love is Greater than Fear

I’d like to tell you a true story about love.

When I was a teenager, I was terrified of marriage. How could I ever find one person who I wouldn’t get bored of, who I would care about so much that I would put his needs before my own, and who I could trust in my most vulnerable moments? I didn’t think someone like that existed. I’ve always been the only person I could trust indefinitely.

Once I even sabotaged a wonderful relationship with a fantastic guy in high school because there was not a dang thing wrong with him. How would I ever dump him if he was nearly perfect? So I ended it because of that.

I never even had any really close friends because of it. Sure, I had people I could call friends and they called me a friend, but I never had that one person who knew my secrets, who I would call when that boy talked to me, who would come to my house all the time, and who I would have countless inside jokes with. I had one or two friends like that when I was a kid, but as I got older I put up walls and distanced myself from everyone, even my family. It seemed like everyone was bound to let me down at some point in some way, and that was difficult for me to handle.

Then I met Bob.

I was stranded in San Diego, California over New Year’s Eve, with no way to get back to college two states away in Utah. I was staying at a friend’s house, and went to a New Year’s Eve party with her and some other friends I had in the area. Bob and I met at that party. They all knew him, that he was kind of quirky but a good guy. He found out I was stranded. He loves snowboarding and wanted to try the snow in Utah, since it boasts of having the “greatest snow on earth.” He also happened to think that I was cute. So he offered to drive me up there.

I’ve never met anyone like him. On that fateful 12-hour drive, we individually decided to be open and honest with each other. Something about him seemed familiar, like I could actually trust him. So I did. I trusted him more after 6 hours than I trusted some people after 6 years. Somehow, he got through my walls and past my emotional barriers. But that’s not all–I got past his too. We opened up to one another in ways we usually don’t open up to anyone, all within the safe and comfortable cab of his blue-green Ford Ranger. I learned some deep secrets he kept and struggled with. He learned of mine. And together, we decided that we would offer unconditional love and support to each other as we trudged on through our trials, dragging our emotional baggage along with us through the muck we call life. Without saying so, we knew we were already best friends.

Four and a half years later, I was sitting on a tree stump in the woods of Tennessee, late in the summer. There Bob knelt, ring in hand, while the sun set and fireflies danced around us. I couldn’t speak for a moment after the question escaped his lips. I picked up the ring, staring at it’s glinting surfaces, and wondered why I wasn’t running the other way. I had been proposed to by a few other men, each of whom was lovely in his own way. But I never said yes to any of them. I never trusted them enough. I hadn’t told them my deepest secrets, my past, my lowest moments. If I had, I’m not so sure they would have wanted to marry me. But here was this incredible man, handsome inside and out, fully aware of all I had been through as a child, teenager, and adult. There he was, those crystal blue eyes and a perfect jawline, with a sense of humor to match my own.

How did I make it to this point? God, the Fates, the universe–whatever you believe in and call it, had somehow given me second chance after second chance to get my life straight, to pick up my shattered heart and piece it back together just for it to be broken over and over until this moment would happen. I needed this man to be in my life. And if we hadn’t met on that 31st of December seven years ago, I have no doubt that somehow God/Fate/the universe would have seen to it that we meet in some other way. But it all happened perfectly, exactly how both he and I needed.

The love we shared then and continue to share now is unlike what I thought “love” was for my entire life. I remember dating in high school, and 90% of the time I was miserable in every relationship. But I thought that it was love, so I’d stay in those awful relationships claiming that I loved him and needed him and that he was different than the other guys… Every time.

Now, this love with Bob is actually different. He never judges or manipulates me. He puts my needs before his. He patiently listens when I say I need to talk, and talks back when I tell him I need him to respond. When I walk past him in the hallway, he always touches me somehow, sometimes by running his fingers across my back, sometimes by dramatically dipping me for a kiss. When a gorgeous girl walks past him, he’ll acknowledge the beauty of another human being, but then he says to himself, “Yeah, but she’s not Janae.” He recognizes my talents and compliments me every day. He does everything he can to make me laugh, even if it means making a fool out of himself. He’ll put toothpaste on my toothbrush and leave it waiting by the sink for me in the mornings and evenings. Before one of us leaves the house, he kisses me goodbye, and before falling asleep in the dark each evening, he kisses me goodnight. Since getting married to Bob, he’s helped me through many trials that I couldn’t have gone through alone. I’m getting better at being spontaneous. I’m a better communicator. I’ve had a baby–my other greatest fear!

If you’re in a relationship where you constantly find yourself sitting with your significant other’s arms around you, and you don’t smile and laugh often, it’s not love. If you don’t think you’re capable of loving anyone, you’re wrong. If I could fall in love and end up happily married, anyone else can. Forcing love doesn’t work, and running from it is the same as you breaking your own heart. It takes incredible strength to open up your heart in search of love, because the emotional downfalls you suffer along the way hurt and can really leave you damaged. But if you can persevere just long enough to find one of the right people, it’s worth each tear you shed and every rejection you have to endure. How?

Because you can have that love and joy for the rest of your life!

More than anything else, living in a way so that someone else can love me has made me happier. Not just because I found love, but also because it’s made me optimistic and hopeful, I’ve learned to love others, and I’ve learned to love life itself. And perhaps most importantly, even if you don’t find a spouse or significant other, you can still find love–through family, friends, relatives, acquaintances, and especially yourself.