If we all go through metamorphoses in love, then who are we really married to—the person, or the procession of selves they become?

I kept one old shirt from my partner just to remember his smell. It used to be musky and rusty, the kind of scent that made me want to run away on a hot, sweaty day. But it was comforting in the way only something deeply familiar can be. A scent that, for a long while, felt like home.

After a near-death accident, he came back to life. And in doing so, something shifted. His smell changed. His touch had a new kind of gentleness to it—like even he wasn’t sure what strength lived inside him anymore. His laughter even had a different rhythm.

The man I once knew didn’t disappear... but he wasn’t entirely the same either.

I never told him this, but some nights I’d wake up disoriented—like I was in bed with a stranger who happened to wear his face.

We didn't talk enough about how that event changed us —how grief and fear cracked us open in ways even time didn’t yet to know how to stitch back up.

And it wasn’t just him.

I changed, too.

My tenderness hardened.

My independence grew teeth.

It was as if we each started swiping through different versions of ourselves, like ghosts of people we used to be, shedding invisible skins only we could sense.

We were still in love, but no longer the same two people who fell in it.

Sometimes I look at him and feel like I’m catching up to someone I once thought I was ahead of.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve drifted into a shape that doesn’t quite fit beside his anymore.

It made me think—maybe love isn’t between two people at all.

Maybe it’s a long, tangled, courageous conversation between a dozen different versions of ourselves across time.

He had become Partner 3.0. I might be on Girlfriend 6.5 beta.

And with every version, we have to ask:

Can you still see me? Do you still choose me? Are we still dancing to the same song, even if the tune has changed?

Something no one tells you that the vows aren’t just for the person standing in front of you on the day you decided to be in love. They’re for the future selves you haven’t met yet. The quieter versions. The angrier ones. The ones who lose faith, and the ones who learn to believe again.

In a lifetime of loving shapeshifters, how many versions of your partner will you hold?

And more importantly... how many versions of you will they love back?