Now that I’m finally done with posts from our family’s trip to Taiwan, the next series of posts will be about the recent winter trip to Seoul I took with C. However, I’m still working on narrowing down photos from that trip while adjusting to my new job (I just started this week!) and I’ve decided to write about something that’s always motivated me to write – and that’s C. And what better time to write about it than on Valentine’s Day, yes?

I feel quite obnoxious writing about our relationship because it really is far from perfect. While I try to document a lot of my life on this blog as something to look back to or insert snippets of how I’m doing while writing unrelated travel posts, a lot about our relationship (and my life in general) has been kept under wraps. I’ve gotten mail and comments about how our relationship sounds so ideal and when I read them, I send screenshots to C so we can both shake our heads and laugh at how we fooled people into thinking we actually know what we’re doing. When I get asked how we managed to stay together for quite a while, I tell them the truth: I have no fucking clue.

The thing is, life has had its ups and downs since we started dating (nearly a decade now yay). We started dating while in college and in our teens. At that age, you don’t really have any concept of what your future would look like and only have a vague concept of what you want to achieve in your life. There are just some things that you don’t know until you know because you’ve done it. Who you are, your goals and dreams, and how you want to live your life, shifts over time and experience. We’ve both done things we’re not proud of, have had our deepest darkest secrets out in the open, our biggest flaws for the picking. But to love is to forgive the person you’re with. For the things they can’t control, the habits they have had from the life they had before you, the mistakes they decide to atone for, and for all the misgivings that are yet to happen. And while it is totally valid for love to not be able to keep people around, we’ve been lucky that we’ve always given each other another chance to rebuild our relationship whenever we inevitably make each other cry.

I also think that the reason for that is because I see a great worthwhile partner in life in C, and I’m pretty sure he feels the same way. He’s already a great person on his own (even if his sense of humor is an acquired taste and can get a bit of getting used to). But he’s also all I never knew I wanted in a partner. He genuinely cares about my wellbeing and happiness. He’s extremely supportive – he’ll encourage me to do the things I really want (even if he’s not crazy about it), and go above and beyond to help me with however he can. The struggles we had eventually highlighted the good things about our relationship. Our commitment to each other has been tested time and time again, and admittedly, life sucked whenever we hit a rough patch, but it’s going through the roughest of patches that made the rest of the road seem smooth. I can’t imagine living a life without him in it. ❤

I’m sorry this post was so cheesy and I usually don’t do anything special for Valentines, but this is our 10th “February 14”, and I wanted to mark the occasion. Happy Valentines Day!