Love Me Wild

I didn’t leave a cult to live quietly.

The Day He Messaged Me, My Soul Knew Before I Did.

I remember the exact moment you messaged me for an interview for CityTv.

Something shifted. Something in me jumped, an invisible thread pulled taut between your words and my chest. It was subtle at first, like a whisper I couldn’t quite hear but couldn’t ignore either.

And then it grew louder.

A nudge turned into a knowing.

“This one. Stay with him.”

It wasn’t logic. It wasn’t desire. It was something deeper. Something ancient. A soul-level recognition.

I’ve told you this story a hundred times, and every time I do, I’m still in awe of it. Because I know, with every part of me, that it was my grandma, long passed, doing the nudging that day. She always had a way of seeing through people. She didn’t waste time on anything that wasn’t real.

She saw you, even before I did.

And damn, was she right.

It’s you.

You are everything I didn’t believe was possible.

Before you, I didn’t know what connection felt like. In the cult, relationships weren’t about connection. They were about compliance, about survival. You didn’t choose someone because they ignited your soul. You chose someone who checked the boxes. Someone who would probably obey the rules. Someone you prayed wouldn’t hurt you more than the church already had.

I married a man I wasn’t friends with.

We had no shared passions, no emotional safety.

My mind intimidated him. My opinions infuriated him. My presence had to be dimmed to avoid conflict.

And when we were alone? I was terrified. Not because he was always violent, but because I could never be me.

Truthfully, I didn’t even know who “me” was.

I only knew how to be small.

How to say the right thing. How to keep the peace.

How to survive and make it back alive.

That’s what love meant in the cult: Make it back alive.

But you?

You are not afraid of my fire, you fan it. You pour gasoline on it.

Where he saw danger in my brilliance, you see beauty. Where he tried to silence my voice, you built me a stage.

You walk ahead, not to control me, but to light the way so my fire can burn even brighter, reach even further.

And then there are the people who say,

“You two spend so much time together!”

As if that’s something to be ashamed of. As if genuine companionship is something suspicious.

As if enjoying each other’s thoughts, laughter, body, dreams, and silence is some kind of dysfunction.

But those people don’t understand what it’s like to finally be safe.

To finally want to be around someone all the time because they don’t drain you, they restore you.

You are my home. My sanctuary. My shelter and my spark.

With you, I’m not awkward. I’m not hesitant. I don’t feel the need to filter myself down to some palatable version of womanhood.

I’m all of me - wild, radiant, unedited.

A mosaic of scars, joy, brilliance, and laughter, and you gaze at me like I’m art in the Louvre. Every time. Like it’s the first time.

You don’t just love me. You witness me.

And still, you stay.

I come alive with you. I am alive with you.

And here’s the part that undoes me every time:

I love the woman I am with you.

I didn’t always. For years, I couldn’t even look at her in the mirror. I didn’t trust her voice. I didn’t believe she deserved anything beautiful.

But now? I see her. I am her. And I love her.

Our values echo each other. Our morals align like constellations.

Our laughter feels holy. Our intimacy is a form of protest, proof that love can be soft, loud, honest, fun, and safe all at once.

We’re building something sacred.

Not in a chapel.

Not under someone else’s rules.

But here, in the messy and magical realness of everyday life.

I’m not afraid with you.

There are no secrets. No shame.

You hold my heart and soul in your hands like something sacred, something irreplaceable. And you treat it with tenderness that still makes me catch my breath.

You didn’t save me.

You showed me how to save myself, and you walked beside me the whole damn way.

So when people ask me how I know you’re the one?

I don’t give them a list.

I just say: “Because I became the version of myself I always hoped was real, and he loved her first.”

And that?

That’s everything.