FINDING LOVE ON THE MOUNTAINTOP

I began to notice the mountain everywhere. In the way you waited for me when I fell behind in conversation, letting me catch up instead of pulling ahead. In the way we stood together at kitchen windows during storms, saying nothing, knowing the same thought lived in both of us: we’ve weathered worse.

On one unremarkable morning, sunlight spilled across the floor in the exact shade of gold I remembered from the summit. You were tying your shoes, getting ready for work, and you looked up and smiled—soft, familiar, earned. My chest tightened with the same awe I’d felt years ago on that first climb.

That’s when it finally settled in.

The mountaintop was never about altitude.

It was about perspective.

Love had lifted us high enough to see clearly, then taught us how to stay grounded when we came back down. It taught us patience. It taught us how to rest without quitting, how to keep moving without rushing.

One day, perhaps, we’ll return to the mountain. Or maybe we won’t. Either way, it doesn’t matter anymore.

Because the greatest thing I found up there wasn’t the view, or even the moment.

It was the courage to keep choosing one person, one path, one steady climb—

and the quiet joy of discovering that love, once found,

never truly leaves the summit.

And when the years softened our edges and slowed our steps, the story learned a gentler rhythm.

We grew fluent in small gestures. A mug warmed and set within reach. A look exchanged across a crowded room that said, I’m here. We no longer needed the drama of peaks to feel elevated; love had settled into something sturdier, like bedrock—unseen, unquestioned, holding everything up.

One evening, long after the mountain had become memory more than destination, the power went out during a storm. Candles flickered. Rain pressed against the windows. We sat on the floor, backs against the couch, sharing quiet like it was a secret. You rested your head on my shoulder, and for a moment I felt that same thinning of the air, that same clarity.

I realized then that every life has its summits and valleys, but the truest measure of love is how it teaches you to live between them.

We didn’t need to climb anymore to feel awe.

We had learned how to make a home out of it.

And sometimes—on clear mornings or sudden bursts of laughter—I swear I can feel it: the echo of wind at the top of the world, the certainty of that first shared view. Not calling us back, not asking for proof.

Just reminding us that once, on a mountain, love found us brave enough to begin—and that we have been honoring that beginning, quietly and faithfully, ever since.

In the end—if it can even be called an end—we return to that first truth the mountain offered us.

Not every climb is remembered. Not every step is marked. But some moments change the way you walk forever.

Love did that to us.

It took two separate paths and braided them into one steady line, winding through weather and years, through summits and long, ordinary stretches of ground. It taught us that the highest place isn’t where the air is thin, but where fear loosens its grip and trust takes over.

If someone were to ask where I found love, I could point to a map and name a mountain. But that wouldn’t be the real answer.

I found love in the choosing.