All of My Hopes, All of My Dreams

All my life, I looked for love. Not the fleeting kind that fades when the hard days come, but the steady, soul-deep love that feels like home. I wanted the kind of love that didn’t just say the words, but lived them—love that stayed when storms came, love that didn’t need to be perfect to be real. I searched for it in all the places the world tells you to look: in romance, in laughter, in the rush of new beginnings. But something inside me always whispered that it wasn’t enough—that love had to mean more than a feeling. It had to be something sacred.

And then, there was you.

Tim.

When I met you, everything inside me stilled for the first time in my life. It wasn’t fireworks or fairy tales—it was peace. It was this quiet certainty that my heart had found its home. You saw me for who I was, imperfect and hopeful, and you loved me anyway. We didn’t just fall in love; we built it—brick by brick, moment by moment, through laughter and tears and the kind of shared silence that says more than words ever could.

With all of my heart, my soul, and my mind, I chose you. I still do, every day.

But I never knew love would be tested the way ours has been.

When your seizures began—those awful, confusing days when your body betrayed you and fear became part of our daily rhythm—it changed everything. PNES isn’t something you plan for. It doesn’t come with a manual or a timeline. It’s a storm that moves in quietly and then refuses to leave, reshaping everything in its path. There are days I feel helpless watching you struggle, days I want so badly to take it from you and carry it myself. I’ve learned that love, real love, isn’t found in candlelight dinners or grand gestures—it’s found in hospital waiting rooms, in whispered prayers, in holding you while you tremble and reminding both of us that we’re still here.

Would you put your hand in mine? You always do, even when it shakes. Even when the fear threatens to swallow the air between us. That simple act—your hand in mine—has become our quiet vow: we will face this together.

You’ve taught me what it means to walk in faith, even when we can’t see the way ahead. We walk through uncertainty, talk through the hard nights, and somehow still find moments of laughter between the cracks. We’ve learned to come back to one another after each storm, to find joy in small victories—good days, good hours, even good minutes. Each one feels like a gift we hold with open hands.

“Come with me,” I whisper sometimes, when the world feels too heavy. And you do. You come back, even when the seizures pull you away. You come back to me with tired eyes and the same steady love that’s always been there. And in those moments, it feels like the world stands still.

Let’s make life complete, you and I. Not perfect, not easy—but complete. Because completeness doesn’t come from a life without pain; it comes from living through it together.

There are days I still miss what was. The spontaneity, the normalcy, the ease of not having to think about triggers or stress or what might come next. But then there are moments—beautiful, quiet moments—where I realize that what we have now is deeper than anything I could have imagined back then. We’ve built something sacred in the middle of the unknown. We’ve learned to dance in the small spaces, to find light in the cracks of brokenness.

Dance with me. Even when the music changes, even when the rhythm falters. Let’s dance in the kitchen, barefoot and unafraid, to the sound of our own laughter echoing through the walls. Because laughter has become our rebellion—it’s how we tell the darkness it can’t win.

Forget the world. Forget the noise, the questions, the pity, the misunderstanding of others who don’t see what we see. They don’t see how brave you are, how hard you fight to keep moving, how much love still pours out of you even when your body betrays you. They don’t see how, through every hardship, you still reach for me, still make me smile, still remind me that love—our love—is stronger than fear.

You are everything I’ll ever need.

I used to think love was about finding someone who made life easier. Now I know it’s about finding someone who makes life worth it. And that’s you. You’re my constant in the chaos, my reminder that faith isn’t about understanding, it’s about holding on. You’ve shown me what strength really looks like—not in physical might, but in quiet endurance, in the willingness to face another day when yesterday nearly broke you.

You are all of my strength, the breath that I breathe. There are mornings I wake up exhausted, emotionally and physically drained, but I look at you—and somehow, I find the strength to keep going. Love gives me that. God gives me that. Watching you fight for your life with such grace gives me that.

There’s a depth to our days now that didn’t exist before PNES. Everything is sharper, more fragile, more precious. Every smile you give me feels like sunlight breaking through the clouds. Every time you laugh, it’s a melody I hold onto. Every time I see your eyes after a seizure, searching for grounding, I see the part of you that refuses to give up. And in that, I find my faith again.

We’ve both been changed. I think that’s what love is meant to do—refine us, shape us, make us softer in all the places we used to be guarded. It’s not the kind of love that runs from pain; it’s the kind that learns to hold it and still choose joy.

All of my hopes and my dreams—they’ve shifted. I used to dream of adventures, of building something extraordinary. Now my dreams are simpler, but somehow so much richer. I dream of mornings where we wake up to peace. I dream of good days strung together like pearls. I dream of laughter echoing in our house, of ordinary moments made holy by the fact that we get to share them.

And through it all, I dream of you with me.

You, sitting beside me as the sun sets. You, holding my hand through another doctor’s appointment. You, smiling at me through the fog, reminding me that we still have each other—and that’s enough. You, walking beside me, talking with me, dancing with me through the broken and the beautiful alike.

This life hasn’t been what we imagined. It’s harder, messier, more unpredictable. But it’s also more sacred than anything I could have dreamed. Because love that endures suffering becomes something holy. It’s refined by fire, anchored in faith, and drenched in grace.

I’ve learned that faith isn’t about praying for the storm to pass—it’s about learning to see God’s hand in the middle of it. And when I see you—when I see your courage, your humor, your tenderness despite the pain—I see Him. I see His strength in your weakness, His mercy in your moments of fear, His love in the way we keep finding each other again and again through it all.

Tim, you are my miracle. Because you fight through every day to be present and because love still remains—strong, faithful, unwavering. Because we still wake up every day and choose each other. Because even when our world feels uncertain, our love is not.

So come with me. Walk with me. Talk with me. Laugh and dance with me, even when it’s just for a moment. Let’s keep writing this story together, one heartbeat at a time.

All of my life I searched for love, and I found it in you. Not the easy kind, not the perfect kind, but the real kind—the kind that holds on through fire and finds grace in the ashes. The kind that says, we may not have everything we planned, but we have everything we need.

And what we have, even in the hard days, is beautiful.

Because I have you with me.