Years ago I felt I would never really understand love. The true nature of love. I didn’t even think that I would ever experience real love and I didn’t have many strong examples in my life either. 

I really tried to find it and went down many roads in my quest to find it. You name it, I tried it. I looked in many places and hoped desperately that It would find me one day. After each new disaster it became harder and harder to keep believing. And that’s where I was before I met the one. 

I believed that love was going to be forever outside my reach and elusive to me. But I can honestly say that back then I didn’t know how to love me all that well either. 

I did try and I am sure I even came close a few times. But… no matter what I did it seemed to always end the same. Despite even hearing the words I love you occasionally… actions always speak louder than words. And they still do. 

Now, many years later I think I have finally found some answers that eluded me back then and I realise that there was never going to be an easy way to learn the lessons I needed to learn about true love. It takes time. 

I had learned things like heartbreak and infatuation but I don’t think many really get to know what true love is until something comes along to test it. 

As a younger, healthier person I found it easy to find something to love about a lot of people, I think I still do, that’s my nature, but that isn’t the love that will fill you when you are empty, hold you up when you are falling, keep giving when you have nothing left and keep hoping when it’s easier to give up. That love is rare. 

They say that every time we fall in love we find something else about ourselves, and what we are truly looking for in life, and perhaps that is why it took me a long time and a lot of heartbreak to get where I am today. 

There are a lot of people out there who may make us think they love us or may even be very fond of us, genuinely fond, but that isn’t the same as true love. 

My true love came later in life when I really didn’t think it would survive, or even grow, but it has grown even after all that we have been through together. Sometimes more in the darker times than in the easier times. 

We have been tested and tried and then tested again. But every time we have hit a wall we have found that love is the unspoken thing that makes you want to keep fighting on. Even if you have to sleep on it awhile and do some hard soul searching. 

There are so many times I didn’t think my husband and I would survive these health challenges. I doubted our abilities to survive many things. But we have. 

I found it so stange that he wanted to stay when so many others didn’t. But I didn’t want pity or someone who felt obliged to stay. He didn’t feel any of those things though, he has stayed because he genuinely  wanted to, and because he loves me. 

It seemed impossible for me to believe this so many times. And I took a lot of convincing. But he was willing to convince me. Every day. 

With every day and every challenge he has never stopped smiling at me or touching my hand which has always made me know that it is 100% real. You see it in the silent little looks and each little action. 

Is he perfect? Nope. Far from it. He is as flawed as he is wonderful… just like me. 

Is he a saint or a martyr? Nope. He is just a normal man that thinks that I am worth fighting for… that we are worth fighting for. 

The scariest thing about this love is that it keeps growing and evolving every day and  yet we both know we won’t be there one day. One day this amazing true love, the truest love I have ever known, will end and that is really the only thing that will part us. 

As painful and soul destroying as the thought may be, I realise that that is the real price of finding true love and that is the sign that you have found your true love… when the only thing that will ever stop you is death itself… but even then I suspect that we will find a different way of loving each other. I don’t believe it can end while one of us lives. That’s just what I feel in my heart and soul. 

Although the pain of heartbreak and rejection was so difficult during my previous life. It broke me, it scarred me and it turned my life upsdide down… but only true love can heal those things and made me become the best version of myself I could be. 

Do we still argue? Yes. Do we differ in many ways and many topics? Yes. Do we want different things in life? Yes, occasionally. Do we have to make compromises? Many, many times. But I wouldn’t want it any other way. Our differences have made me grow in ways I never imagined. Think in different ways. Feel in different ways. 

We are first and foremost best friends, and an unbreakable team and that is what has fueled my love for him most of all. 

I find it hard to imagine life without him now and even a day apart seems a lifetime. After 15 years he is still tells me I am beautiful in the morning, even though I am riddled with pain and growing older, and he says he loves me more and more each night, even if we have argued. 

When we look at each other we see our past, our present and our future in each conversation and emotion. And nothing has come along that has ever changed that. 

True love has meant that I love someone else so deeply, but it also helps me love myself deeper too. 

Many years ago I said “…I want to find someone who doesn’t just want to live with me, but can’t imagine a life without me…” and I am so amazed that I eventually found that. Even with these terrible diseases. 

Someone who makes me a priority. Someone who shows me what I mean to him. Who isn’t afraid to feel or fail in front of me. 

For someone with chronic illness and real health challenges true love has given me self pride and respect that is so important when your life had changed forever. It is the basis for rebuilding a life again. 

Gentle hugs, 

Trish.