Love Is Not Meant To Be A Temporary Home

However painful your past or deep your scars, I hope you never steal someone’s heart just to fill a hole or heal a hurt. That you never look to a partner as something to be used up then disposed of. That your every lovely, honeyed word is spoken with only sincere intentions. That your “I love yous” don’t translate to “Until I find something better.”

Because a person’s love is not a raincoat you slip on only when it storms. It is more than some motor inn with the vacancy light switched on. It is neither a shelter away from sorrow, nor a temporary home, but a deeply rare and precious gift that merits respect and reciprocation.

There is something sick and rotten in a world that endorses the consumption of other human beings as if they were no more than just another material thing. That teaches us it is OK to cycle through romances like they were the chamber of a revolver in a game of Russian roulette.

This is a lesson we must all do our most to unlearn.

True love is about connection, not compensation. You should never enter a commitment thinking only of what you hope to receive, but instead, what you hope to offer and share in—of what you would sacrifice for that look in your partner’s eyes, or of the potential you see in a future together.

It is not the duty of love to repair or rebuild you. That job belongs solely to your own courage and will. We must find peace and come to terms with our own lives and selves before bringing somebody else into the fold. If you want to give your relationship a chance at survival, you must give it the foundation to. You cannot expect beautiful things to grow in a bed of polluted soil.

Similarly, neither should your partner’s affection be utilised as a simple pastime. Our devotion is one of the most sacred things that we have to give, and if you are fortunate enough to receive it from another, do not debase and degrade it by holding it hostage as if it were no more than a cheap distraction or play thing.

Ultimately, a heart is something to be cherished and nurtured, to be praised and respected, to be adored and protected, but if you cannot see its remarkable beauty and value, at least release it to the possibility of discovering someone who will.