A couple years ago I wrote a letter to my snuffleupagus future partner about needs versus wants. Mostly to keep my heart grounded and live with intention without falling into desperation. However, in a world of casual, its easy to get discouraged from wanting more. (Don’t know about you but I could not read that last sentence with out the movie trailer guy’s voice in my head.) Our current society almost undermines the need and desire for connection and Love, while simultaneously being told to cram relationships into containers which don’t work for everyone. How did we get here?

Yeah, love is hard and sometimes you get hurt. But I got news for you, relationships also aren’t instant. They take actual time and tending. Maybe that’s the problem. Perhaps because everything else in our lives occurs almost instantaneously now, we expect it of our hearts as well?

I’m finding and observing while dating, that many people are struggling with connection and loneliness. Often, we confuse connection for love when in fact it’s an attempt to fill the hole of loneliness. The symptom of this is people are afraid to go deep and attempt connections at all. We “keep things casual” so we have an out, in an effort of not hurting someone or more likely, getting hurt ourselves. We have been conditioned to avoid suffering. If shit gets hard or someone challenges us to go deep, there’s gonna be someone or something else easier to handle on the next swipe, in the next town, the next job, next week, tomorrow even. That way we don’t have to feel things like heartache or guilt. I touched on this before in “Call Me Curious” so I won’t rehash that.

When we do truly connect, it’s a time of patience and cultivation. We can be tempted to rush these connections because we feel them so infrequently these days. But in doing so we often live on the sufface of relationship, reject people too soon and skip the messy parts that truly connect us. The only way to reach real connection is to be all in with someone and take it as far as it goes. Aren’t you tired of living on the surface of almost?

So before my love unfolds too much, there are some things I would like to say to those who chose to run with me. This is my continuing love letter to you. It sounds best read out load like a poetry slam.

Open up. Feel. Deeply. Allow yourself to be vulnerable. Be all in. Love is exciting, and scary. It feels like flying, and happy, and sad, and a chest full of hummingbirds and hope.

I love the way falling feels warm. The way a new lover is unveiled like a summer’s day, slowly at first with a promise of sun and heat in the air. A summer’s day can unfold into a scorcher though if you allow your heart to race faster than your brain.

I’m not here to fix you. But I enjoy the challenge of figuring you out. If you need to be fixed or chased, I simply can’t get involved. I don’t have the time, energy, or inclination. I am also not looking for someone who is fixed and feels there isn’t room for growth, because I am still fixing my own cracks. I know this will be an eternal pursuit. But I do need to know that you are capable, and willing, to fill in your own, without looking to me, or alcohol, or sex, or outside influences to fill in yours. From this place of caring deeply for ourselves, we can care deeply for each other.

I need alone time. Time each day to read, meditate, watch some cooking show, or just daydream and nap in the sun. Have I mentioned I’m very catlike? Some days I may need less. Some days I may need more. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, it simply means I’m taking care of myself for you. I need space to reconnect. I will always give you this same consideration. If you need more, or less, please ask for it, or anything else, for that matter.

I need to marvel. I am someone who thrives in the richness of the soil, the woods, the brightness of the dawn, the love of my dogs, the colors of the sunset, the taste of freshly brewed coffee. Even the acuteness of the pain I sometimes feel as I wake. I need to throw out my arms at least once every day and feel my heart thrive in harmony with the universe.

Let’s agree that our partnership is judgement free. You are free to be completely, 100% you. All of the burping, slightly odd, hogging the covers, snoring, generous lover, wickedly funny, crazy affectionate, million other wonderful you things that you are.

Be them.

Don’t ever hold back, even when you think you will offend me or hurt my feelings. Because if we’re going to do this life thing, separately but together, those things WILL happen, not IF. We can’t be afraid that the person we care about is not going to care about us when we are not perfect. There will be days we will be cranky, and thoughtless, and pointless words will spill out our lips like acid. Let’s then pause and get naked because then we are at our most vulnerable, and breathe and talk and fight. It’s never me against you, it’s us against the problem.

Because sometimes you will hate me, and sometimes I will hate you. And sometimes we will anger each other so much we will want to blow out our own ear drums just to quiet the noise. And I will want to back down just to keep the peace because that’s what I’ve been conditioned to do. And you will want to shut down because our society has conditioned you not to show weakness. We can never allow this between us. I’m trusting you to be my Champion and I will be yours, even in discomfort. Because love is stronger. I just ask that you show up and fight fair.

I want to feel amazed each day. By my love for you, yours for me, for life, for sunshine, for adventure, the pursuit of unanswered questions, for patience. I want to look at you every day, and wonder at how this imperfect life brought us here. I want you to think I am beautiful though flawed and hopelessly whimsical even when my hair is tangled from the night before.

Lets make blueberry scones on Sundays after we’ve slept in and we will daydream under the fort of the sheets. We will be quiet and content. Later, we will take a ride or walk, and talk about bikes and beer and places to add to the adventure list. Or perhaps philosophy, because we can talk about anything. Or maybe we will just sit and smile, because we can be quiet in our company. When we get home, yours or mine, we will make love slowly but roughly, full of the passion and heat born of two people who cannot get enough of life, or the exploration of each other.

Let’s be silly. And sad. And joyful. Let’s explore the world, and the trails made by others and make some of our own. Let’s make cookies, and memories, and love, and gardens, and a life that is full. Of what, I’m not sure yet…wanna come?