On my 18th birthday, I wake up with the words: "for a thousand years I will love you," tattooed on my upper back.

I have to look in the mirror to decipher the words. As soon as I piece the words together, I smile, then scream (well, in my head).

In reality, I slip a shirt over it, so that my parents will not notice this new permanent development on my upper back.

Later that day, I find a note taped to my mirror. The writing is barely legible, so I have to squint to read it. I put on my reading glasses and make out most of it:

'Kylie, these words are words your  soulmate will say to you. Once you hear them, you will marry this person  and spend the rest of your life with  them.'

After that there a few more words, but they are impossible to read. I assume that I have gotten the gist, so I hide the letter in a messy drawer filled with paper clips and rubber bands. I forget about it for five long years.

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Five years later, I wake up on my twenty-third birthday. I roll over and look into my boyfriend Ry's sleeping eyes. He opens his piercing blue eyes and looks at me.

"For a thousand years I will love you," he tells me. I throw my head over my shoulder and reach for the tattoo that I have allowed myself to forget.

Then I remember the note, and realize I will have to marry Ry. I love him, but I am not ready to commit to him yet.

"What did you say?!" I respond.

"What, oh, I don't know. It's weird, it's like someone forced me to say something about loving you for a thousand years,” Ry laughs, as if this is all a joke.

"Forced?" I respond, my voice raising at the end. 

I had only met him two years earlier, so I did not see how Ry could be linked to the tattoo.

Ry told me to close my eyes and go back to sleep like him, but I could not. Not after what he said. Things would never be the same.

An hour later, I shook Ry awake.

"What?!" Ry asked. He looked shocked, because I had already showered and dressed. Usually we showered together, but I was not up for that type of intimacy today.

"What you said means we have to get married soon. You are my soulmate."

Ry starts laughing and asks hysterically, "are you high, Ky? I thought you weren't into that stuff!?" he replies, teasingly.

“No, this is serious, Ry” I say as I shoot him a death glare that warns him not to mess with  me. I am not up for jokes right now.

Ry is short for Ryan. I am the only one who calls him Ry because he only allows me to call him that. Our friends used to tease us when we started dating: saying, “Ky and Ry, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.” After that, he stopped letting them call him Ry and I told my friends to stop calling me Ky. We reserve those nicknames for each other, and let no one else use them.

“Ky, I do not see how me saying those words means we have to get married?! That’s some weird stuff you are saying. It’s freaking me out. Is this some bad dream I am in? ‘Cause I do not believe what you are saying is true. Do you really mean it, Ky?” He looks me straight in the eyes, because he knows I cannot lie to him when he does that. He holds me close to him and kisses my forehead, begging me to tell him the truth.

“Yes, Ry, I’m telling the truth. I never told you this, but five years ago, when I turned 18, I woke up with a tattoo that said ‘for a thousand years I will love you.’ You know, the one on my upper back? The only other one I have is that little flower on the small of my back, you know, the one I got after my grandpa died? He lived in Hawaii and he always used to send us hibiscus flowers, so I got it to remember him. You’ve seen both but have never asked. I have always found it weird that you have a tattoo on your upper back in the same place as mine. But yours says ‘I’m telling the truth.’ Wait! Did yours appear on the morning you turned 18? Did you get a weird note later?” I suddenly put two and two together, and realize this is all really happening.

“Now that you mention it, yes I did. I got the weirdest note and almost threw it away, but put it in a drawer instead. I just thought it was some prank or something my friends pulled. The tattoo is weird though. I wonder if everyone gets one when they turn 18?”

So we proceeded to text or call everyone over 18 we knew. My best friend Ally had one that said “To me, you are perfect,” which no one had said to her yet. It was in the same place on her back.

Ry’s friend Kevin had one in the same place that read, “I want to run away with you.” Like Ally, no one had said this to him yet. He had a girlfriend named Megan. He said hers read, “You make my heart sing.” It was funny because she was a singer, and he was the guitarist in their band. No one had said this to her either.

After many texts and calls, we realized that it seemed that everyone had an arrangement of words on their upper back appear after the morning of their 18th birthday.

They each read something slightly different, yet equally and eerily romantic:
“My heart beats for you,”
“You are my only exception,”
“Look over my heart,”
“I only have eyes for you,”
And so many more.

They were all so cheesy, yet so undeniably comforting. Knowing that someone someday would love you enough to say these words was amazing. Yet what if the wrong person said them for the wrong reason?

Fate has a funny way of showing itself.

Ry and I were married a few months later, on November 20th, three months after my August 20th birthday. The leaves were changing on our wedding, just how our lives soon would. I was 23 and so was he. We had the same birthday and we had both heard the words on the same day, within minutes of each other.

We were young to be married, and the first of our friends to get married. Ally got married two years later. Kevin and Megan got married three years later.

Ry and I turned out to be very happy together. We threatened divorce multiple times, but knew neither of us would follow through. We had a son, Tyler, who we called Ty for short, because there was just something about those two-syllable consonant then y names.

It was just the three of us for awhile: Ry, Ty, and Ky. But soon, we had a little girl. She was an angel, and we named her Angie. For short we called her Gie, which sounded a little different than the rest of us, but that was because she was a level above us. She glowed when she smiled, and everyone knew she would turn into someone great.

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Fast forward thirty-four years: it is the morning of my fifty-seventh birthday. Well, Ry’s too. We wake up and shower together, like always.

Ty is thirty-three, so has long since moved out. He lives with his husband Flynn, who just goes by Flynn. We had known Ty was gay since he was about ten and loved Barbies more than Hot Wheels. But, he did not come out until he was seventeen and a junior in high school. We acted surprised, but still show him the utmost support.

I had always questioned my sexuality, and had kissed a few girls before deciding guys were definitely my preference. It all takes us a little while to find ourselves.

Flynn and Ty had met at NYU in an acting class. They had married when Flynn was twenty-eight, and Ty was thirty. They had only been married three years. Nevertheless, they had already adopted a baby boy from Cambodia, and twin toddler girls from Korea. They were always doing so much good.

As for our angel Angie, she grew up to be an amazing singer. She sang before she talked, practically. She was twenty-seven, six years younger than Ty. She was the runt of the family, but acted more mature than all of us, even Ry and me.

Gie had a boyfriend named Miguel, who loved her deeply. His tattoo read: “a lifetime of love I lay at your feet.” Hers read: “as long as you live I shall love you.” Neither had said these to each other, but we knew they would soon. We were all waiting with baited breath for Miguel’s proposal to her. We sensed it was coming.

Ty’s tattoo read “I will catch you when you fall,” and Flynn’s read “I love you more than chips.” And Ty loved chips. Just like Ry and me, they had married three months after saying these words to each other.

After awhile, the tattoos became normal. They became a common dinner topic, following a “how are you,” one would ask “what does your tattoo say?”

We found out that Ry and I were the first generation of tattoos, which made it special for us. But Angie and Ty had become used to it, the original awe fading with time.

Gie and Miguel would soon say the words to each other and time would continue to pass, a mere blip occurring in the waves of our lives.

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My tattoo faded with time, and so did Ry’s. When we were old and wrinkled we whispered the words to each other so we would not forget them.

Gie and Miguel were married with four kids. Somehow Gie managed them and her singing career. Leave it up to that angel to do everything.

Ty and Flynn are raising their three adopted children with utmost care, like only they know how.

Ry and I are sharing our last years together in a little beach cottage in Capitola. We get coffee at our favorite cafe every Wednesday and Friday. We get burritos every Tuesday. It is these little routines that shape our simple lives. But the most important one is the one where we call our children and whisper their tattooed words to them. Once they have been said by their soulmate, anyone else can tell these words to them. So we remind them that we love them by saying sappy love quotes.

Even more important though is what Ry and I tell each other. Because long after we forget the date we first met, or the time we first kissed, we will remember the tattooed words. They will be with us forever.

So when we wake up on the morning of our seventieth birthday, I whisper to him, “I love you, and I’m telling the truth.” He whispers back, “I know, for a thousand years, I will love you, Ky.”

He kisses me on the forehead and I am transported back to the time I first told him those words. We were so much younger, but we were still confused, and just trying to figure love out.

My whole life, I have been trying to decipher the meaning of love. Why we need it; why we give up so much to have it.

And I have finally found it, I think:

Find that one who will love you for a thousand years. Who will tell the truth. Who will sing the song of your heart. Who will only have eyes for you. And who will treat you as their only exception.

Although you may not have a tattoo leading you to the right person, find them by instinct, by gut reaction. Trust yourself and your heart. They are always right. Love is complicated, but with the right person it is easy.

I find comfort in the fact that everyone on this earth has someone, somewhere who is made for them. You will find each other, and you will love each other - for a thousand years, perhaps more, if you are lucky.

Let me know how your search for love goes. I may be long gone by then, but I will always be listening. The tattoo will still be on my upper back, reminding me that Ry - and love - last forever.

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