Ten Years to Love – A Poem

If you had told me

that in ten years,

I’d be a completely

different person,

I would have laughed.

At the time I was diagnosed,

it felt like my world

was flooded with

so many different emotions.

I was alone on a raft,

floating out to nowhere.

I had no clear idea

of where I would end up

or how I would get there.

I had to learn about

who I was all over again,

and what I was capable of.

It took me a long time

to turn away from hatred,

my own and the hatred of others.

I didn’t know at the time

that I was capable of loving myself

and what my disease had made me.

Once I let go of the fear,

a whole new world opened up for me.

I was still afraid,

but I wasn’t holding onto fear

like a life preserver.

Fear would not save me,

but an open heart would.

I made a long ago promise to myself,

standing in a dark basement

of an apartment filled with trees

that belonged to a forest I was desperate

to leave behind.

I told myself that I would love

everything about myself

that I deserved love,

even when I was afraid.

That choice led me down

a totally different path,

one that I would not have found

without the choice I made to love.

That choice led me to you

and the love that has bloomed

so beautifully between us.

You don’t complete me.

Instead, you compliment me.

You see me as I really am,

and you know me,

deeper than I know myself.

When I look into your eyes,

I see another kind of sea,

but not the one that I was lost upon

oh so long ago.

Instead, it’s a sea of the emotions

that I feel for you

and that have led us to a new path,

one that we have forged together,

every stone representing memory we share.

Looking at the path before me,

at the stones that have yet to be filled

with memories, I am not afraid

of what waits for us.

We will face whatever comes together,

knowing that ten years to love

have opened another doorway

towards our future.