"In gaining the man she loved, she would gain the world."

I've thought a lot about love throughout my life. Part of that comes from our romance-obsessed society. But another part comes from a deep, genuine desire to love someone deeply, to have another person so completely and comfortably by my side, and to create something beautiful with that person--my person.

So yes, I've thought about love a lot throughout my life. Through crushes, infatuations, heartbreak, cynicism, hope--it's one of those important threads of life that is impossible to disregard, though there are time I have tried. And in thinking about love throughout the years, I've thought about what it would feel like to be in love with the person I'd marry--what that would look like, in real life. What he'd look like, what he'd be like, what our relationship would look like.

Turns out, me being in love--hopelessly, comfortably, beautifully in love--with the man I will marry looks like Sam Dearden.

I would not have guessed that our story would have turned out the way it did. Neither of us did. It wasn't love at first sight (or even second or third or fourth). Far from it. But rather, it was a story of stars finally aligning. Of meetings and re-meetings and realizations. Of finding out that love can increase. People can change. And that first impressions don't have to be the last.

For me, love has come more slowly than I expected. It took some coaxing. I had to convince my poor, tired, cynical heart that Sam was worth the chance--worth the pain--to just see what could happen:

let it go--the
smashed word broken
open vow or 
the oath cracked length 
wise--let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go--the 
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and 
neithers--you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go--the 
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things--let all go
dear 

so comes love. --e.e. cummings

So comes love. And so came Sam.

Perhaps it doesn't sound terribly romantic, but loving Sam was a choice--my choice, our choice. Something we've grown together. Something that is still new and raw and beginning. It was not a perfect knowledge, for there is never a way to know perfectly. But in the choice to love him--in the choice to marry him--I found courage.

That courage was needed in an irregular relationship. I would never have chosen long-distance as the way to get to know someone or to date. But that is how our story turned out. We both took chances on each other, and we put forth the time, effort, and sacrifice to make it work. The fact that it did work--that we're getting married--is nothing short of a miracle.

The older I've gotten, the more I realize that the fact that anyone gets married--that two people decide to start and share their lives together--really is a miracle. There is a reason we put wedding announcements on the fridge (that mark of ultimate praise), because it is something we look on fondly, a reminder that miracles happen, that people can choose to be together--forever, even--and be willing to fight for their collective happiness.

And Sam in my life is also a miracle. A living, breathing, walking, beautiful miracle. Good men are, unfortunately, in short supply in this world. And to find a good man who appreciates me for my mind, heart, and beauty, a man who supports me and my dreams, who "wants [me] to have [my] own thoughts even when [he holds me] in [his] arms" . . . that truly is nothing short of a miracle.

Being in love--and preparing to marry the man I love--is both strange and exciting. But mostly, it just feels right. Perhaps that's what I'm surprised by the most--how right this feels, for all the craziness and uncertainties our relationship and life has thrown at us (and will continue to throw at us--this is life, after all, and she does love curveballs). But our relationship has been so joyful. Deep, deep joy that bubbles over and surprises me.

["When I think what life is, and how seldom love is answered by love--marry him; it is one of the moments for which the world was made." --E.M. Forster, Room with a View, p. 213] 

In less than three weeks, Sam and I will kneel across from each other in the Salt Lake Temple and make covenants--commitments to each other and God to love, support, and cherish each other. Our relationship--this new, raw, beautiful love--and our even newer and rawer marriage will be sealed for time and all eternity. My mind still can't grasp what an eternal marriage looks like. Forever is a long time. But again, it's a choice and a promise we're willing to make. To take a leap of faith, holding each other's hands, and to step into the unknown, exciting, terrifying, beautiful, messy future together. It's a sacred simplicity. Holy and good, new and terrifying.

I think eternity looks a lot like love. Miraculous, impossible, yet real.

[So we just hold on fast

acknowledge the past 

as lessons exquisitely crafted 

painstakingly drafted

to carve us as instruments

that play the music of life. 

For we don't realize 

our faith in the prize

unless it's been somehow elusive. 

How swiftly we choose it

the sacred simplicity 

of you at my side.] --vienna teng