On the Way to You

by Kandi Steiner

To the voyagers, looking for answers in the shadows of the darkest of nights. May the promise of the sun on the horizon always bring you back home.

I don’t want to die before I’ve even had the chance to live.”

“You kids remind me of my younger days. This is the stuff life is made of. Don’t blink, or you’ll miss it, and wake up seventy-two and grumpy.”

“I don’t know. I want someone I can laugh with, and go on adventures with. Someone who will challenge me to be better but also support me when I’m weak. I want someone who shares their deepest fears with me, shows me their scars willingly — someone who trusts me to heal them, just as I trust them.” I bit my lip. “And I want to feel a rush every time our skin touches. I want to lose entire afternoons with them under the covers. I want someone who I can’t wait to share good news with, and someone who I know will hold me when the bad news comes.”

“I want that kind of love that leaves you breathless when it hits you, and makes you want to throw up at the thought of losing it. The kind that makes you so happy that it hurts at the same time, like it’s painful to think that out of all the people in the world, you somehow found the one meant for you.”

“It’s about growing together. Changing. And figuring life out along the way,”

“Sometimes, we have to trust the ones we love, the ones who love us, even when it’s hard to do.” Her eyes skirted to my tent, to the journal, before they found mine. “Because even though marriage brings us together as a unit, there are still two individuals who make that whole. And they need to be able to have their own things, their own time, their own privacy.”

“There may be things he hasn’t told you yet. Hell, there may be things he will never tell you. But you don’t get to decide which thoughts are which, or when you get to learn more about him, or when that trust goes deeper than where it is already. You only get to be there for the ride, holding on, showing him you’re not going anywhere. And every now and then, you’ll get to see inside him — really see inside him — and you’ll cherish it. And your love will grow. And you’ll realize why you waited.”

It isn’t death that’s scary. It’s living without actually living at all, breathing without purpose, existing without essence.