This hub is to let people know that true love really does exist. I’m talking about the storybook kind that you see in Disney movies. When you’re a kid and you see that stuff, it puts a dream in your mind of what it could be like for you some day. Then, for some of us, we grow up, fall in love with a real human being, and become scarred when that person turns out to be much less than our ideal. We replace the dream with a newfound picture of the “real world” where you can’t have your cake and eat it too. I’m here to tell you that the new picture is wrong, and the old dream is right.

I’ve been married for less than a year now, and it’s been wonderful the whole time. The very second that I knew I wanted to marry my wife, I popped the question- no planning, no engagement ring (that came later). That’s because I was a light-year beyond any question that I wanted her, and that a life with her would work. I knew by looking in her eyes that she was the one for me. I knew by hearing her voice when she talked, and watching the way she moved. I thought it impossible to be more in love than I was at that moment, but ten months later, the love that I feel for her now makes that time back then seem like nothing.

I used to be attracted to just about every woman I saw. Magazine covers at grocery store checkout aisles drew me in with their better-than-reality photos of smiling beautiful women wearing minimal clothing. A female couldn’t pass my view without me following her with my eyes, and picturing her belonging to me. It was a miserable existence- all that unsatisfied longing. It got to where I didn’t notice the women themselves, only that they were women, and I was attracted to them. But when I met my wife, all of that changed. I was a lonely person, and she reached out to me as a friend. She showed concern for me at a time when concern wasn’t coming from anywhere else. She satisfied a need in me that superseded all standards of physical attraction. And now, at this point in our relationship, when I picture the optimum woman, it’s her that I see. She looks better than a magazine model; she looks real, and reality is absolutely gorgeous.

But I think I am one of the lucky few, and not only because of the particular woman that I married, either. I’m mostly lucky because my life’s troubles have set me up to be able to appreciate my wife the way that I do. The agony I’ve endured has turned out to be my greatest blessing. I’ve found that the most gratifying things in life are the things that you are able to appreciate the most, and that real appreciation is a virtue bought with pain. The more you appreciate a thing, the fewer its flaws become. You begin to realize that the flaw wasn’t in the thing; it was in your ability to perceive the thing. And then you start seeing the utter perfection in everything, flaws and all. The world around you becomes blissfully satisfying. If I hadn’t gone through years of personal suffering, I may have still married my wife, but she wouldn’t be the same person to me that she could’ve been. I wouldn’t have seen quite the beauty in her that I am filled with now every time I look at her. So you could say that my meeting her was the best thing that ever happened to me, but that wouldn’t be accurate unless you included all the very worst things too. When you face the loss of everything short of life itself, you learn to find happiness in the most insignificant things. Then when the significant things come along (in my case my wife) it’s like rediscovering the world.

However, point of view is not by any means solely responsible for the true love in my life. It’s more like the mortar that holds the bricks in place. The bricks are things that I’m sure I will be discovering for the rest of my life. A new one seems to reveal itself to me every day. So far, what they all add up to is that I am simply meant for this person, and she for me. If there is an ultimate Creator, she and I were designed specifically for each other. This is the kind of thing you hear in those storybook romances your whole life. It practically smothers you till it becomes meaningless. It did that to me, anyway. Maybe it has done that to you too. I’m hoping that someone reads this who has long discarded the possibility of having a dream-come-true love life. I believe having one is one of the fundamental reasons you should keep living. All you have to do is believe it is possible, and acknowledge how much you really want it (as much as a dreaming kid watching Sleeping Beauty) and when it comes along, you’ll be ready. Don’t kill the dream. Dreams are messages to us of what we can have- and what will keep us alive if followed at all costs. They’re the toughest things to keep pushing towards, and that should tell you something. It tells me that they are the way to go. When unsure of where to go next, locate the most difficult, scary thing inside you, and head in that direction. Use your fear like you would a road map. It’ll lead you to love.