As we age, we all change into different people from those we were the year before. We adapt our tastes, we learn and expand our knowledge, we face challenges that strengthen us in new and better ways, and so on. The things we experience every day affect us in ways we can both see immediately and see later on down the road, making our journey through life truly meaningful every day. Just like anyone else walking the Earth, I have had events within my life change me in ways that I could have never imagined, and it’s these moments that I look to when I think of my growth as a person.
Of all these moments and experiences, though, there’s one event in my life that has changed me in more ways than I could have ever fathomed: I fell in love with an incredible man. For the past four years, I’ve seen my life grow and change for the better because of the love I share with my amazing man, and anyone else who’s been in love knows what I mean.
First, you start being the best person you can be. It starts out that way because you want your new love to see you at your best: being someone who is kind and smart and generous and generally loveable. You want to make your person happy and make them fall in love with you even more than they already are because you love them so much and just never want it to end. Soon, though, you find that you’re not being the best person you can be because it’s nice to see, but that your partner is helping to bring those qualities out of you instead. You’re not trying to be that awesome person because you became that person. You and the one you love easily allow those amazing qualities to shine, and you find that you’re ultimately a better person because of the one you love.
Not only do you become a more amazing version of yourself, but you also gain skills you never knew you needed in life. Skills like knowing how to rub a back a certain way, knowing just what to say or not what to say to make the one you love feel better, or how to pick the perfect place to eat that day. You learn how to fold their clothes a certain way, what to make them for dinner after a bad day, how to play their favorite video game, and how to drive their manual car. You become a fashion consultant, a food critic, a caretaker, a counselor, and a comfort giver, and you come to master these skills fairly quickly. Loving someone means learning new skills, and you come to find that they’re pretty good skills to have over a lifetime.
Once you’ve been together for a while, you develop your own couple shorthand. This special language of yours allows the two of you communicational access with the added bonus of confusing the hell out of everyone else around you. Maybe your language consists of certain facial expressions or body signs. Perhaps the two of you can communicate through various pitched sounds, which to you can express your feelings or thoughts clearly. Perhaps you use one word answers that gives the two of you more information that a paragraph of explanation. No matter what it is, the two of you have a code, and only other people wished they could communicate like you.
As your love continues to grow, you find that mundane tasks are pretty fun because you suddenly have someone to do them with. Washing your car turns into a game of who can wash their side the fastest. Grocery shopping turns into silly banter or a race through the store. Driving long distances are shortened by the car karaoke you two sing along the way. Cleaning the house is paused by taking the time to dance to a song or two on the radio. These tasks become some of the best parts of your day, and you secretly look forward to when they’ll come about again.
With the changes of taste you have in your life, you come to find that you suddenly start enjoying many of their tastes and vice versa. You share songs from various artists back and forth, you play new types of games and come to find that you’re good at some of them, you try new things in life because they’re interested in something and you want to try it. These new tastes help to bring you closer together, and you enjoy all that they do for you two and the new doors they open in your life. Perhaps you’ll share a life changing moment at a concert put on by one of their favorite bands. Or maybe you’ll fall in love with a new recipe because you broadened your food choices. Maybe you’ll make an incredible memory because you visited a place they love and you’ve never been. The possibilities are endless, really. You just have to try something new.
Of all the things that change in your life when it comes to finding the one you want to be with all of the time, the best one is this: the love you gain is unending. You have the love of your partner, and with that love comes the love of their friends, the love of their family, the love of their coworkers, and so on. You and your partner share an incredible bond and trust because of your love, and that’s something you never lose. When times are hard, that love can be counted on just as surely as it is when the times are good. When you’re sick, you can count on that love even more so than when you’re healthy. When you need a friend, they’re there for you always, because they’re your best friend in the whole world. In my life, the love I’ve received from my wonderful man has helped me through all sorts of situations, both good and bad. He’s my rock, my light, and the person I put more hope into than anyone else on the planet. His love has changed my life for the better, and I thank him every day for that.
My life has changed in amazing ways over the years. Between my accomplishments and my failures, my plans and ideas, my times of joy and times of sadness, and so on, I can truly say my life has changed in many amazing ways. But of all those things, the most important change is this: I found the love of the most wonderful man in the world, and he has helped to change me and better me every day that we’ve been together. He is the person I owe so much to, and he’s the one who makes me life wonderful. My life has changed because I was able to let love into it, and I hope everyone in the world gets that opportunity as well.
