“I finally understood what true love meant…love meant that you care for another person’s happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be.”- Nicholas Sparks

I knew it was love, the moment I realized I wasn’t going to gain anything from it but I was okay with that.

I looked at him wanting and yearning for something so much greater but at the same time, my heart was content to even feel those things at all. I also knew it was nor the time or place to shed such declarations.

I knew love and the human condition well enough, that if I truly loved someone and I gave my best, there would always be a deep connection there. And no matter how far one may stray, love would lead them back.

And a lot of people told me I was wasting my time. He was a lost cause. I was setting myself up for heartbreak and defeat. That nothing would come of it. And I knew that but I also didn’t need anything to come of it.

I knew love had the ability to heal and sometimes that’s what people need most, just someone to simply love them and care about them. In return, you heal too for being such a person.

So that’s love or that’s my definition of what love is. Maybe it’s tainted, maybe it’s not right but to me, it feels like it is.

Love is that faith you have in someone when there’s no logic to it. Love is believing in something you can’t see but feel.

Love is putting someone else ahead of yourself and being completely vulnerable. Love is giving part of yourself away to heal another.

It’s falling in love with conversations. Falling in love with flaws and their really bad days. It’s realizing in that moment when you see them at their worst or weakest, this person you once thought was perfect is anything but that and you love them more because of it. It’s a simple conversation that makes your entire day. It’s the honesty in their eyes when they look at you and it’s like you have a language all your own. It’s looking at another person and realizing in that moment, you’d do anything for them. But more than anything it’s wanting them to be happy because their happiness makes up your own.

Love is a selfless act. You don’t love someone so they can love you back. Love is bravery and admiring someone without having to make them yours. You love them just because you do. Because having them in your life regardless of what form it’s in, makes you a better person. Love is being whatever they need you to be, even if it hurts sometimes.

Love is the silent confession that goes unsaid because time is a bitch. Love is waiting your turn. Love is letting them go sometimes so they can figure out whatever they need to. Love is that faith that they’ll come back once they find those answers.

Love does not come rushed with some grand declaration of racing against the clock. Real love does not fade ever.

It isn’t three words to hear them back.

Love needs not to be reciprocated to define it as something real.

To find love and to fall into it, comes only with the bravery to let someone in and allow yourself to be vulnerable. Falling in love is opening up an old wound so someone can heal it.

Love is the ability and strength to give part of yourself to someone else who needs it more and in return for such an exchange, comes a feeling of wholeness that you’ve done all you can for them. And that’s love in its purest form.

And if you’re lucky, that person you fall in love with decides to love you back.