I broke my water bottle this morning, the one Tommy gave me for Valentine’s Day three years ago. I guess in long term relationships, wine and cream-filled chocolates are replaced with socks and vessels for beverage consumption. Sturdy, stable, built to endure. 

That water bottle has seen the world. It sat in the hallway of Khayelitsha District Hospital in South Africa, climbed Table Mountain, took a cruise in the Mediterranean. And now, despite a life of adventure, it will end its day in a recycling facility, ready to be transformed into a plastic spoon or a grocery bag. Not many spoons make it around the world.

I’m sad, but this isn’t meant to be an ode to a water bottle. 

As you can probably guess, my love language is receiving gifts. I imagine you rolling your eyes. A five-dollar plant from Kroger, a Twizzler picked up at the store, a slushy from the gas station. It doesn’t have to be much. Just a little thing to say – The reality of you occurred to me.

The truth is, the water bottle and the slushy have no weight of their own. They are purely physical substance. The true weight is conferred through the giver – the writer of the sticky note, the previous owner of the mug, the purchaser of the plant. Love and generosity between humans that transcend mere idea and manifest in the touchable. 

In just a few days, Tommy and I will celebrate 10 years since the phone call. The one where he asked, “Could we say that we’re dating now?” And the sixteen-year-old on the other end of the line said something along the lines of, “I guess so.” The rest being history. 

I don’t believe in love at first sight. If you are in a crowded room and you see the person with whom you will spend the rest of your life, I believe there’s a chance that you’ll feel something towards them. Attraction or emotion, the pull of excitement coming alive deep inside of you. But not love. Just your heart dreaming, the emotion just coincidence. I know, because I know what real love is, and it’s not manufactured at a glance.

Love is earned. It is tested. It is built on knowing, not on seeing.These ten years haven’t been easy. We’ve lost count of the arguments, the miscommunications, the harsh words. We built our opinions of the world, our beliefs, through argument and debate. 

But for every disappointment, there was a truer emotion – the reality of connecting with another person. Of seeing inside the mind of another and realizing we were both growing in the same direction. Our words began to mirror one another’s. Our dreams came together and got wrapped up in each other until the muse was indistinguishable apart from one another.

And now, ten years later, we are no longer the same.   

I look at my broken water bottle, my love language, and I’m reminded of all the things that we have lost. All the things that we had to leave behind, forgotten or unforgotten. They cannot last, as much as we want them to. Shattered wedding glasses. Misplaced gifts. The baby onesie we bought on vacation. The ultrasound picture that Tommy has tucked away, somewhere where I cannot find it. 

But we’re still here, and that’s why I know it’s foolish to meet a stranger and call it love. There is so much yet to learn. So much yet to build. When he sits all evening at your father’s funeral viewing. When you can’t stop throwing up on your honeymoon and he holds your hair. When your temper breaks and still he says I love you. Then you can call it love. 

It won’t and doesn’t happen the same for everyone. I hope you don’t up-chuck on your honeymoon. But if your relationship has only been exposed to dinner at the Eiffel Tower and a stroll in Tahiti (*cough cough* The Bachelor), then there’s a lot left to learn. Love isn’t a sparkler burning at sunset. It’s a woodfire, patiently and diligently stoked against night’s chill. Not out of duty, but also not out of emotion. Sometimes a choice.

I’m no sage. I am young, and the road still stretches ahead of me, so far that I cannot see the end. The pages of my life are filled with mistakes yet to come. But the little I know is this – to love is to apologize quickly. It is to want another’s happiness more than you want your own. Love is to ask the other person to change for the better and to accept their suggestions to do likewise. 

Love is to cry, to fail, to lose. Love requires repentance and faith. It is not always a fair trade. It is not for the fainthearted or the dishonest. It requires you to lay down all of your cards and occasionally pick up some of theirs. But love is without equal. It is God’s greatest gift. 

When life is particularly, unfathomably sad or strange, Tommy and I often look at each other and say, “I couldn’t do this with anyone else.” And it’s true. Love may be a source of heartbreak, but it will also be the hand to pull you out. 

There was a summer night, many years ago, when Tommy and I sat at the end of the driveway and looked at the stars. I don’t remember all of the things we said, but I remember dreaming, hoping, sharing. There are days I am tempted to wait for the world we dreamed of, to wait for happiness like I wait on the train. But Home is not a destination. It’s here, with you.

P.S. Tommy, if you could buy me another water bottle that’d be great. Maybe purple this time.