A letter from the luckiest girl alive.

Dearest Joseph,

One year ago today, you asked me to be your girlfriend…and four days later, you told me you loved me. From the outside, that probably seems crazy. It’s something that happens in movies, right? And everyone scoffs at it, saying, “Oh please! No one falls in love that quickly. This is so unrealistic.”

The strange thing is, when you said those words to me — “Tabitha, I love you” — I never, for even a split second, doubted your sincerity. Sure, I may have reacted kind of strangely, saying, “Are you crazy?!” and then, “Are you sure?” But in my heart, I completely believed you. I knew you meant it. And I was, quite unexpectedly, nothing short of thrilled. I say it was unexpected because, as you know, in the past I’ve been known to freak out a little when things get that serious that quickly. Or at the very least, I get skeptical, and I assume the worst. He wants to get in my pants. He must be really desperate. He’s too clingy.

Maybe it was the way you said it with such confidence, not as if it were a question or like you just felt it would sound “right” in that moment. You had thought about it; you told me why you knew you loved me. You told me when you first realized it (which was before we were even officially dating). And you didn’t force a reciprocated reply from me.

But I have a confession. It’s something I don’t think I’ve ever told you, but that’s only because I’m just now reflecting back on that night and realizing what I did wrong. See, I was about to leave for Romania the next day, so I had a great excuse for not saying “I love you” back. I didn’t want this huge distraction over my head while I was gone. I needed to be focused on what I was going there for, and though I couldn’t stop you from saying it, it was completely within my power to sort of “pause” the conversation there and say we’d pick it up when I got back. And that’s exactly what I did.

Here’s the confession: That moment? You know, right when you said you loved me, and I asked if you were crazy and if you were sure, and you said yes, you were absolutely sure? In that moment, my heart leapt and shouted, “I love you, too!”

…I just didn’t let the words come out of my mouth.

So while I was in Romania, I had this huge distraction over my head. I couldn’t focus on anything, except for the three words I didn’t say to you that night before I left. I would try to rationalize things, try to convince myself that the reaction I’d had in my heart was probably more about getting caught up in that movie-moment, knowing what the typical leading actress would’ve said to the handsome leading man. I told myself I needed more time with you before I could really know if I was in love.

But every day that passed that I had to be WITHOUT you, I woke up thinking those three words, and saying them to you in my head. I couldn’t talk myself out of what was so completely ingrained in my heart, this love for the man I’d met only weeks prior in a hospital room on such a “random encounter.” I ached for the day I’d return to you, so that I could look into your eyes and say the words I should have said at that moment when my heart had already said them with complete faith and certainty.

I did say them, within just hours of returning home from Romania. And here we are now, less than two months from our wedding day.

If someone had told me on May 11, 2008, that in just over a year I would be marrying that guy I’d met in my uncle’s hospital room, I would have peed my pants laughing. Me, married by the end of 2009? Yeah right. That’ll happen.

Thank God for you, my wonderful husband-to-be, for proving me wrong. I absolutely cannot wait to become your wife. To spend my life loving you, sharing everything with you, taking on many adventures with you. You are the soul mate I almost didn’t believe existed.

Happy one year of dating, and happy 54 days until our wedding!

I love you so much, Joe.

Love,
Tabitha Rose