Stuart Pritchards

The Universe Of Us

I feel like I have loved you forever, but I know 30 years is just a speck of time in a 13-billion-year-old universe. It’s insignificant compared to the millions of stars in the Milky Way or the lightyears between those brilliant stars and us. Our love affair is nothing compared to the billions of galaxies we’ll never see. Our life together is not insignificant to me. You are my favorite galaxy.

Our worlds collided and we made a new one together—bits and pieces of our old lives and who we used to be melded together to make something truly unique. The world of We; the universe of Us. There is no untangling the parts of this world. They are perfectly intertwined—two broken people pieced together and made whole. If by chance we were undone, we would never be who we were before the world of We. When we are returned to dust, it will not be our separate worn-out bodies. It will be a million particles of our shared life— memories, history, experience, and emotion. There is no tearing us asunder because there are parts of you in the nooks and crannies of my brain; you flow through my veins and arteries into my heart; you are in my bones, the strands of my hair, and the laugh lines around my eyes. You are wrapped around my spirit. I see you in my dreams and think of you while awake.

I cast a love-spell on you so you would love me forever. It was a magical mixture of butterfly wings that tickled my tummy on our first date, popcorn and licorice, the sound of your laughter, a drop of Oregon rain, and a movie ticket. I kissed you goodnight with my spell-stained lips and you were mine and I was yours—an enchantment made more powerful with time and 10,000 kisses.

Our perfectly imperfect love story is written with words dripping of honey and honesty—a story of how we saved each other and built a beautiful rollercoaster life together in the world of We. I will love you forever even when we are just stardust and memories in the universe of Us.