To My Dear Soul Mate,

There are so many ways that I could start this letter. I want to thank you, love you, and give you the whole world. This letter could go on for pages and pages. I have so many things that I want to write down and so many things that I want to say to you.

There are so many things that I say every day, but I want to make sure you know how I feel. From the first date, I knew that I was going to love you. I never believed in love at first sight, but you took my world and flipped it upside down.

In my new upside world, I could tell that I was going to love you more than anything I had ever known. Our first date was the day I met my soulmate. Every single day since that day, we have grown stronger. We have laughed, cried, and then laughed even harder.

Every once in a while though, I will have people tell me that I am too young to be settling down, that I should take it easy, and enjoy the college life and my early twenties. I know you have heard the same, too. However, the fact of the matter is, is that there is nothing that I want to experience without you.

I want you to be there at four in the morning when I am cramming for that test. I want you there at two in the afternoon when I am in a sea of people trying to get to the lunch line. I want you there when I am getting ready in the morning. Just because I love your presence.

I want you every second of every day. Some people wonder if that's codependency. But... it isn't. It isn't that I cannot function without you. It isn't that you can't breathe without me. It's that you're my best friend, and you make every situation even better.

You are a success all your own. A doctor, a great son, a best friend, and a brother. No matter who you're around, you make the best of times even better. Simply your presence lights up the room. You make me a better person. You bring out the best in me, and show me that it is okay to be myself.

You, without knowing it, taught me how to love myself all over again. You gave me this sense of renewed self love, and love for others. You don't even have to try. You just being near me is like someone set my heart and soul on fire.

I knew I loved you from the second I saw you.

Once upon a time, when I was a young teenager, I had a broken heart. Adolescence had gotten the best of me. I lost hope in love, and at sixteen I thought I would be alone forever. I sought out the church in search of refuge to put me back together again.

I wanted to be new and whole again, so I went with a friend to a small group get together. Their small group discussion that month just happened to be about relationships. The leaders all handed out pieces of paper and told us to write our perfect man down. It was a simple task that I took very seriously.

I didn't know then that I was writing about you.

At sixteen, most girls said they wanted their man to have washboard abs and perfect teeth. Some girls simply said that they wanted someone to be nice to them. I really took this activity to heart and poured my soul into that paper.

I still have the paper that I wrote four or five years ago. It lists different attributes, saying how I really just wanted someone to love me for me. I wanted someone who didn't have to be artistic but had to have a genuine appreciation and interest in the arts in general. I wanted someone with dreams...they didn't have to be the same as mine, but I wanted someone with ambition and a goal in life. I got slightly materialistic (I was sixteen mind you!) and I dreamt of a guy with dark hair and strength, a person with a sense of humor and good taste in comics.

I wrote out my heart on this paper. I decorated it with swirls and doodles, made it pretty and redid letters so that it would be in cursive. It was my dream guy on this paper. The whole idea of this activity was for us to not settle until we met this man, to wait for that person to come along. It was to practice patience. We should pray for that person, because they existed, and they were real. They were going to come into our lives one day and sweep us off our feet. Heartbroken, I tried my hardest to believe them. I clung to the idea that somewhere, someone who was just right for me was out there.

Then, the leaders told us to pray for them more, to pray for our future husbands. I prayed for him daily. I had made mistakes, big and small, in relationships, as most people do at sixteen and seventeen years old. None of those boys ever fit my list. I made excuses for them, that maybe somehow they did fit my description... but it always fell through.

I was still lost in the idea of love, now entering my twenties. I was a skeptic of romance. Then I met you. I fell in love with you fast. I had never felt this way before. I thought back to that paper I had tucked away in my favorite book and knew that I had prayed for the right man all along. You actually DID meet every single thing on that list of dreams, right down to good taste in comics and curly hair.

I knew then that he did exist, it was you. I realized that I prayed for you all along.

I really want to tell you thank you.

Thank you for ordering me that Coke I said I didn't want, but you knew I really did. \Thank you for helping me pick out outfits. Thank you for the gifts. Thank you for learning how to put my hair in a ponytail so you could do my hair for me. Thank you for holding me and washing my hair for me when the world becomes too much for me to handle. Thank you for the kisses, and then the extra twenty kisses I request afterwards.

Thank you for all of the times you said "it's okay." I know that sometimes I can be a handful. I can push the limits and push your buttons at the same time. Thank you for knowing the signs of a panic, and telling me that it is all going to be fine. Thank you for wrapping me up in your arms and just staying there for a while.

Thank you for wiping my tears, even though sometimes you don't know why they keep coming. You have never once given me a reason to doubt you in any aspect. You are loyal. You are faithful. You are driven, ambitious, and so much more. You are exceptional in every way.

You are always so sure and you are always so strong. I have seen you break, I have seen you stressed, and I have seen you cry. Those things only made me love you more. It made see you as an even stronger person than I already had known you were.

You shared your feelings and your heart, and I can never say thank you enough for that. You showed me that a REAL man does cry and that he does have emotions. That was the day my heart tripled in size.

Your love is my greatest gift, and my most prized possession. You make me laugh. You tell me that I'm funny even though I know I'm not. You say I'm perfect even though I disagree. I curse too much, even though I shouldn't, and you just shake your head and smile at me. I could make a sailor blush, but you just say "that's my girl."

You push me to be my best. You show me the way when I get lost. You hold me up when I stumble. You pick me up when I fall. You show me the sun when my world is dark. You are my anchor, but you let me keep my head in the clouds.

You are the person I never thought could exist. God created you to fit in my life. And for that, I can never be thankful enough. Now, you are my life. You are the sunrise and the good moments, you are there in conversation and in silences. You are my heart and soul.

I love you more than words can say.

-A