From Radhika ECE to the love of her life, her husband. First prize winner of KL14-LBS 99 love letter competition
Hey Love,
Sometimes, when the world quiets down and I have a moment to myself, I think about us. I think about all we’ve been through—the mountains we’ve climbed, the storms we’ve weathered, the laughs we’ve shared, and the love that’s only grown stronger with time. And no matter how much life changed around us, one thing remained constant: you. I don’t think either of us could have predicted where we’d end up when this all started, but looking back, I wouldn’t change anything. Every bump in the road, every laugh, every fight—it’s all made us who we are today. And who we are is pretty damn beautiful!
It’s on the nights when we lay in bed, back to back, because we argued about something neither of us can even remember now, but at the time, it felt so big, like maybe it would break us. It’s in the days when life seemed to weigh us down: when the bills piled up, when the kids were driving us crazy when nothing seemed to be going right, and we both felt like we were drowning in it all. It’s in those moments of silence when words didn’t come easy, and we were both too stubborn to be the first to apologize. And yet, even in those moments—especially in those moments—we chose each other. Every. Single. Time. Even when the easy thing would have been to walk away or to let the silence between us grow, we chose to fight for what we have. We chose to stay, to lean in, to work through the pain, the frustration, the exhaustion.
That’s what love is, isn’t it? Not the shiny, romanticized version that movies sell us, but the gritty, hard-fought love that’s built through the struggles. The love that makes us stronger because we’ve faced the hard stuff together and come out on the other side, hand in hand.
It’s that kind of love that makes me look at you with such gratitude. Because I know we’ve been through it. We’ve seen the worst of each other, the sides no one else sees. We’ve hurt each other, we’ve made mistakes, and yet, we’ve always come back to this—to us. And that’s what makes what we have so damn special. Not that it’s perfect, but that it’s real.
And when I look at you, even after all the rough moments, I still see the person I fell in love with. The one who knows me better than anyone else, who has walked beside me through the storms and hasn’t once let go. You’re my person, my home, and there’s a kind of peace in knowing that no matter how tough life gets, we will always choose each other. That’s the magic people talk about. Not the perfection, but the choice. Over and over again, we choose us. And that’s something more beautiful than any fairytale love could ever be.
Thank you for being my rock, my partner, my love. For always choosing us, even when things get hard. For seeing me, really seeing me, and loving me through it all. Here’s to us, to everything we’ve been through, and to everything that’s still to come. I can’t wait to keep writing our story, one crazy, beautiful chapter at a time.
With all my love,