Dear Future Wife,
I have no idea who you are, but I’m at a point in my life where I really wish you were here. I’ve always promised myself that no matter what happened, I would never stop believing I’d find you. Some days that feels like a promise I made to a different person, because the person I was when I made it is someone I can barely remember.
I wish finding you was as easy for me as it seems to be for everyone else. I wish it were as simple as me growing up, meeting a guy, and eventually starting a family. It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that it was never going to come that easily for me, and that’s mostly because I’m gay. I’m comfortable with that now, but I’ve lost a lot because of it.
The thought of finding you someday helped me get up in the morning when my lifelong dream in swimming fell apart because I, among others, couldn’t accept that I was gay. You kept me moving forward when I was too ashamed to stand up for myself, and when I let people look down on me because on the surface, I failed, and they couldn’t piece together why I didn’t live up to their expectations. When I had to pick myself up and start what felt like a whole new life from scratch, I did that because I knew you’d be in that life someday.
I get up every day and tell the world that I’m whole and complete by myself because I made it to where I am when nobody was there to help me. In many ways, I am, because I pulled myself out of a hole that seemed impossible to get out of. I did that for myself, but part of me knows I also did it so that someday I could be with you. Every day, week, or month that goes by I wonder when you’ll show up to tell me that climbing out of that hole was worth it.
After all I’ve been through, it’s hard to still feel like something in my heart is missing. No matter how much I can handle on my own, I know this is the one thing in the world that I can’t save myself from. I need you to save me from that. And it’s a terrifying thing for me to feel like I need anybody.
I wrote you this letter because someday I want you to know that no matter how hard things get, and how long I spend feeling like this, I would do it all again if it meant finding you. I would stand up in front of all the people I loved who broke me by telling me there was nothing good about me. I would relive all the nights I spent scared and alone after the people I needed the most told me that I didn’t have any worth. I would watch a 20-year-old dream shatter in front of my eyes and flash back to everything that almost destroyed me, because at the end of it all, it helped me find you.
I have no idea how, where, or when you and I will meet, but I know every time I start to lose hope I’ll remember that I’m not only keeping a promise to myself, but also to you. I’ll do everything I have to do to become who I need to be before I can meet you. I will never stop caring about people, even when it doesn’t make sense and even when they hurt me. Because one of these days, you’ll need me too, and I’ll be exactly who you need me to be when that happens.