Love set me free

"Love it will not change you, betray you or dismay you, it will set you free, make you more like the man you were meant to be." 

Awhile ago, I got T into the group Mumford and Sons.  I really liked two of the songs they had on the radio, and I wanted to hear more.  This Shakespearean quote is on the very first song on their CD, and immediately I was taken with it. 

I like to think that you can substitute the word "woman" for the word "man," and in fact, I have done just that in my mind. 

Before I meant T, I thought that I had to change myself to be exactly what that person needed me to be in order to have a relationship work.  Sure, you do have to compromise, as does the other person, in any kind of relationship, and you grow and change with that person.  However, I took that to the extreme and held back major parts of who I was and what I wanted in life just to make a relationship work.  Relationships that were pretty much doomed from the start. 

I can't begin to tell you how many times I would meet him, the guy I hoped would be "Mr. Right."  We'd start dating, he'd be saying all the right things and then "bam."  There's that thing.  That one thing that has sirens going off in my head, but nine times out of ten, I could ignore those sirens and think "it's OK, I can get used to it."  So what if he doesn't like going anywhere on the weekends?  Dates are overrated.  So he likes guns and gun shows? I can go to them.  (For the record, I'm anti-gun so this was a big deal to me.)  So he talks down to me?  It's probably because I'm being silly or something.  Maybe he's just teasing.  So he wants me to come see him every weekend long distance and never see me?  That's OK.  Heck, I'll probably move where he is anyway.  He does drugs?  It's okay...most artists do.  He thinks I should try being a blond and go tanning?  Maybe I should...it's not like he's asking for much.  He has no desire to see my family and meet my nieces and nephews?  It's okay...some day he will....I'm sure of it....

Yeah...those are all true situations, I'm afraid to say.  I compromised what I wanted out of a relationship, who I was, how I wanted to be treated.  I thought that was what you did for love.  You made sacrifices, but somewhere along the way it was me who was sacrificing, and I was sacrificing who I truly was. 

I have never once felt that way with T.  Not once.  I was pretty hard at first for him to crack to see who I truly was, I'll admit.  But those sirens never went off.  Not once.  I've never had to modify myself to be someone who he wanted me to be.  He loved me for who I was:  the girl who can burp louder than he does, the girl who makes up lyrics to songs playing on the radio and sings them over and over again and off key, the girl who dances to and knows all the words to "The Humpty Dance," the girl who unapologetically loves watching shows like Hoarding and Ghost Hunters, the girl who would do anything and everything to protect those she loves, the girl who can quote Airplane! quotes and does quite frequently, while at an airport or in any given situation, the girl who picks at her fingers when she's nervous, the girl who likes to be right  but isn't afraid to admit when she's wrong, the girl whose Southern accent slips out every now and then, the girl who falls asleep every night in the nook under his left arm while we're watching TV, no matter how early it is. 

He has shown me true love.  Love that does not betray me or dismay me.  His love has truly set me free, and I have no reservations in saying that his love has made me be the woman I was meant to be.