To my dear daughter,

As you grow, many boys will enter your years. They will speak words of love and passion, of wanting you–all of you.

Their sex will be lacking.

Believe me, dear girl, I know what crazy hot lovemaking is made of. Until the boy can assure you of the following, it is not true passion.

If he can patiently wait for over three years. From pregnant to nursing to pregnant to nursing, with your hormones fierce, and desire often dead. “Please, just let me sleep. I am so tired.” will be your common response. Until he can love you still, choose you still, it is not true passion.

If He can call you beautiful when even your feet are swollen from baby belly. Call you sexy when your legs run thick with varicose veins from the same. Call you perfect after your belly hangs loose with skin and your eyes deep with bags. Until he can still call you these things, it is not true passion.

You may throw things at him, yell words of hate and shame as you feel the hormones of post baby blues run deep. Until he can love you even deeper, piercing through the pain into your heart, it is not true passion.

He will go to work where there are other women, pretty women. Pretty women with no children and varicose free, high heeled legs. I know the way they toss their pretty little hair to and fro.

He will come home to you, your hair pulled back into the frizziest of buns, a baby on your hip, spit up down your arm. Until he can come home to you–you with no makeup–and express there is nothing as wonderful as seeing your face, it is not true passion.

You are touched by his love, and whisper tonight you will return the favor. Tonight there is a crying baby and a feverish toddler who just joined you in bed. Until he can laugh, fully laugh about this, it is not true passion.

Can a man like this exist? Yes, dear girl, and you call him your dad. He has shown me what true love is.

The hormones have faded. I am not pregnant. I am not nursing. My own passion has returned. Can I truly say “returned?” I really had no idea what passion was. So intense, so raw, I cannot put it fully into words.

I am not in love with just another man. I am in love with the father of my babies. The one who called me beautiful through nights of ugly, called me strong through days of weak, called me valuable through days of uncertainty. The one who waited patiently for me. Who washed the sheets of vomit as I bathed the fever infested child.

This is love dear girl. This is passion. It is being one with he who is going to be there for you, till death do you part, regardless. It is something mystical and unexplainable. It is something crazy. It is crazy hot sex.

Wait dear girl. Wait for him. There is nothing so beautiful as finding your heart in his, the one who will wait for you–even after marriage.

Love,

Mom