To my amazing, wonderful, funny, smart, and sexy girlfriend,

I know the exact moment that I knew I could fall in love with you. I know I’ve told you before. I also know you won’t mind me telling you again.

It was our second date. I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited (and nervous) for a date. I picked you up at your house. I watched you walk up to my car. You looked beautiful. You got into my car, and the way you looked at me sent ripples through me. You smiled at me and said, “Hey!”

“Hey,” I smiled shyly back.

I looked down at my hands. You took my chin in your hand, turned my face to yours, and kissed me slowly and sweetly. It was as if you already cared about me deeply. My heart said, “I could fall in love with her.” My brain said, “April, you’re screwed.” My heart told my brain to shut up.

This weekend is our first anniversary. What an amazing year it has been. I feel like each day with you is an adventure. I feel like finally, for the first time in my life, I am living life and not just getting through life. I watch how you experience life every day. You live with such passion and enjoyment. You’ve taught me how to live the same way. Thank you so much for that.

I wasn’t sure I would ever find someone to spend my life with. I spent countless hours trying to convince myself that I would be okay with that. Honestly, I never was really Okay with it. It’s like my soul was inside of me twiddling its thumbs while my brain and heart fought over my opinions on love, then the very moment we met, time stopped and my soul said to yours, “There you are! Finally!”

My heart is so full of happiness and love that I’m quite positive that it will explode. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have such a wonderful person in my life. The love I feel for you and your boys is so amazing that it sometimes brings tears to my eyes. I thank God for bringing you to me.

Happy Anniversary, baby. I know our future years will be just as great. I love you so much.

Love,
April

I’m searching....I know I can find it. I’m quite certain that the cars that pass by the house are wondering what that crazy woman is doing walking in circles around the yard while looking at her feet.

I really don’t care what they think. I’m determined to find the perfect four-leaf clover....

According to the Old Wise One (a.k.a. Wikipedia), it’s good luck to find one. Especially if you find it while not looking for it. But this isn’t for me. It’s for my girlfriend. I thought it would be the perfect thing to give her on St. Patrick’s Day.

While searching, I think about this past year. What a great year it’s been. I can’t believe it’s been almost a year. We’ve made plans for our first anniversary. This year has been full of moments that take my breath away, and I’ve realized the famous quotation is right. Every kiss, every look, every time she touches my hand touches my heart and makes my breath catch.

I am so very lucky.

I bend over to get a closer look at a patch of clovers. I’ll stay out here all day if I have to....

Then, just as I think about searching for a four leaf clover all day, I see it. It’s perfect. It’s beautiful. Just like her.

I carefully pick it, walk into the house. She looks at me and smiles when I hand her the clover.

My heart leaps, and I say, “Happy St. Patrick’s Day.”

I’ll never forget the first time I saw two girls kiss on TV. My body reacted to the kiss in a way that my brain didn’t understand. I wasn’t sure that I liked it. Accept that I knew that I liked it. At 21, I had never been on a date (I don’t count my prom date on account that my mom made me go with a boy I had never met before.), I had never been kissed, and I had very limited knowledge on what the word “gay” meant.

After freaking out for a bit on what it could mean that my body reacted in this way to two girls kissing, I decided that I liked the kiss because it was romantic and I was a sucker for romance. Then I decided to forget about it. (Except that I was so completely hooked to the girls’ storyline.)

The next 5 or so years is when the internal war began. Every day at work, a girl who is gay would tell me I was confused. I knew what she meant and she knew I knew what she meant. Almost every day, I had a “friend” that would confront me and ask me if I was gay. Rumors at work floated around. I felt tormented. Sure, women were sexy, but I was not like that girl who kept telling me I was confused. I was not gay.

Except that I was gay.

A few years after that, I admitted that I had an attraction to women. I didn’t want to act upon it because that’s not what God would want. I was raised that being gay was wrong. I would shame my family. I couldn’t openly live a life that would shame my family. I just couldn’t.

Then one day, while sitting at a red light, I said the words, “Dear God, I’m gay.” It wasn’t an exclamation. I was praying. It was the first time in a long time that I had prayed. Through my tears I confessed to God that I was attracted to women. That I wanted to find a woman to spend my life with. That I was sorry if He was disappointed in me, but I couldn’t change this part of me. I was born like this. My whole life finally made sense to me.

What I felt after that was something that words cannot describe. I felt so warm and loved. It felt like someone had taken their arms and wrapped them around me and said, “I know, child. I know.” I realized right there in that moment that God wasn’t disappointed in me. He loved me very much and that I should love myself, too.

Right there, in that moment, my faith had become stronger than ever, and for the first time in a long time, I felt strong.

Recently, a friend and I were having a discussion about God. He wasn’t sure that God loved like humans do. I told him, God is like the wind. I can’t see Him, but I feel Him and His love every day. I can’t explain it, I just know it. And that makes me smile.