The subject my O.P. is written about is hard for me to talk about, and I’m not sure anyone can relate too much to any of it, which makes it harder. I mean as I sit here at my keyboard typing my hand it trembling from nerves, which doesn’t make sense because the only one here is me. I guess knowing that I’m going to be reading this to all of you is what is making me nervous. Now that I’ve said all of this I’m left asking myself “Why am I even talking about it then?” I guess it’s because sometimes there’s that one thing you just have to get out of you and it’s searching for an excuse to do so; well this O.P. is my excuse. And I have a hunch that most of you will have the same question at the end of this, during the post-O.P. discussion, and I’m going tell you right now that I am not going to tell you. So here we go:

For my O.P. instead of telling one story, I will tell three very brief anecdotes that relate to each other as well as my topic. But first, a little build-up: we’ve all liked a girl/guy as more than a friend. But even this form of attraction can vary. Theirs the person you have a crush on; theirs the person you really like and want a shot with; and then there’s the person you like so much that it’s love, and I’m not talking about the kind of love where it’s like “Oh, we’ve been together for 6 months now”. Not that that isn’t a real form of love but I’m talking about this feeling you get where you just know you want to spend forever with someone. You want to support them in every way, you want a family with them, and you want them to put their life in your hands because you would do any and everything for them including giving up you life for them. Most of us have experienced the first two kinds, but what if I told you I’ve experienced the third kind, towards a girl I’m not even with, and heck she’s not even single. I know many of you are right now thinking, bro, you’re a naïve 18 year old boy who hasn’t even graduated high school yet, and you think you know something as bold as that already. I mean yeah, there is still a lot of life ahead of me, but I…I don’t know how to explain it.

One night my uncle, who is related to me by marriage, which I say only to add to the impressiveness of this story, was sitting at a bar with his best friend. They were sharing some brews and enjoying each other’s company and living the lives of bachelors. Eventually my uncle taps his friend and gestures towards a young lady at the end of the bar he had never met before and says to him, “You see that girl at the end of the bar, I’m going to marry her.” That woman is my aunt. They are still happily married today and have two healthy children in college.

My father was introduced to a young lady by a mutual friend. He tells my sisters and me that he knew on the first date that he was going to marry this girl. And he actually told her so on the third date. Obviously he knew what he was saying because she is my mom. They’ll be married for 26 years May 10th and they’ve had four children including me.

My Grandfather was attracted to this beautiful woman from New York who moved down here to Maryland because of the Great Depression. He asked her out, she said no. A little while later he asked her out again, she said no. Finally he decided to ask her out one more time, she said yes. This beautiful woman from New York was my grandmother. They were married for too long for me to count, they had 6 children including my mom, and they even took in a niece because her parents could not raise her.

How did they know? How did my uncle, father, and grandfather know without a shadow of a doubt that these were the women they were going to spend forever with. I just don’t know. All I know is here I am this naïve 18 year old boy, and I’m pretty sure I’ve already had that moment as well. I’m positive it’s not lust, because I don’t look at this girl and only think, “I want to tap that”. I look at her think here is a girl that words fall short of putting a description to, and I want to wake up every day knowing she’s mine, knowing that we’re relying on each other, and I will travel to ends of the earth to make sure I don’t let her down and ultimately want to spend forever with. A girl I would lay down my life for and that is not an over-exaggeration. There is just something about her that shuts me off from the rest of the world and takes me to another dimension. Like the way she gives me sass and I act like it bothers me but we both know I love it. It’s the little things, the big things, and everything in between and what makes it all even better is she’s humble and acts like she’s nothing special.

Unfortunately the way everything is currently arranged all odds say I’m wrong and I’m not supposed to be with her, but still there’s some form of quiet confidence inside of me saying, “Yeah I am, just wait, you’ll see”. Why is it some of us, myself included, are just so sure about something like this when it’s such an unsure topic in such and unsure world?