Love isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always rainbows and butterflies and random iloveyous that makes beautiful days. It isn’t always forehead kisses and holding of hands and moments where you thought you couldn’t be any happier.

Sometimes, it’s full of hurricanes and the ugliest of storms that you have ever seen. Sometimes, it’s waiting at a dinner table for a person that’s never going to come.

Sometimes, it’s throwing glass at your doorstep when you realize the person you love stopped loving you and that’s the kind of darkness that never gets fixed.

Sometimes, it’s wanting to walk away from love because it was hurting too much that you forget all about the beautiful side of love. Sometimes, all you remember are the heartbreaks and night spent crying at the bathroom floor, wondering why you weren’t enough for them to stay. Sometimes, when people ask you how love feels like, all you remember are the bad instead of the good.

Love isn’t always pretty, but love isn’t always ugly either.

Love is seeing the ugly side and wanting to stay, either way. Love is seeing the person you love at their darkest and seeing them on the verge of losing themselves and wanting to stay more because of it.

Love is working things out, no matter how hard it is, because you would rather endure the pain of working things out with them than endure the pain of a life without them in your life. Love is missing them so much that it hurts to breathe without them. Love is waking up next to them and seeing them vulnerable and honest and fragile and still wanting them anyway.

Love is choosing to love them, even when they aren’t so lovable, especially then.

Love isn’t always going to be pretty, but after a while, you realize that you have to have the ugly side of love to cherish the beautiful and extraordinary side of love.