Today I was in the basement looking for yarn for a crochet project and I happened upon a box of my old writing. I opened it and started flipping through the personal poetry notebook I kept during my junior year in high school. Most of it is really dark stuff written under the influence of Major Depressive Disorder and not to be shared with anyone. However, the first poem in there was about Chris. The writing isn’t particularly impressive; what struck me is just the sweetness of my early impressions of the man who would become my husband. Here it is, exactly as I wrote it at the time:
“Chris” 9/02/2003
Where shall I even begin
about someone who has
touched my life so deeply?
I love how you love the Lord.
your life shines with the
Christ-like example you portray daily.
I am infinitely joyful that
He saved your soul (as well as mine).
I am thankful for the
friendship we share.
I’m content to talk to you for hours;
whether about nothing or everything,
it matters little.
I treasure each moment
spent with you.
You may never know how special
you make me feel.
You make me feel like a real woman,
worthy to be loved and cherished.
No one’s ever made me feel this way before,
not until you came along.
I truly shed some tears when I read
certain touching phrases from your letters.
Thank you, from the whole of my being.
It’s hard to believe that someone
as sweet and thoughtful as you would pick
me, Aimee, what with all
my insecurities, fears, and quirks. What a blessing!
I know I’m unique,
but I guess I’m not used to
receiving positive attention for it.
When you hold my hand or
embrace me tightly,
you make me feel safe, protected, and at home.
It just feel so… right,
if you know what I mean.
I wonder if you’re the soul mate
God chose for me…
because you might be.
I happened to have been praying for my future husband these past six months or so—
for his spiritual walk,
and that he’d have the self-control to
wait for me.
I pray for you day and night, and
I love you dearly…
Perhaps it will become a deeper love as
time goes by.
For the present, anyhow,
you are extraordinary,
and I couldn’t be more thankful.
We’d only been dating around six weeks at this point. We were both 17 years old. We went to different high schools, so we legitimately wrote letters to one another at times which we would later hand-deliver. We had not yet said “I love you” nor had we kissed. I believed in the idea of soul mates back then and I don’t any more, but that’s a topic for another day. The fact remains he was to be my best friend and husband. Somehow, just six weeks in and at the age of 17, I was correct in thinking he was the one for me.
There are things in here I wrote of that I think are important to find when entering any relationship, too. I had identified that Chris was easy to talk to. I identified our shared common values (our faith in Christ). I’d found someone whom I felt safe and secure with; a person who looked at me and saw my uniqueness as a gift. I found someone who cherished me and loved me before himself. These things were evident even six weeks in and even as teenagers, and they remained part of our relationship for the entire 11 years I had with him. Chris was a man of kindness and character.
In this particular case, the gushings of a teenage girl were well-founded. In Chris I was given the kind of love most people only dream of.
