I know some of you think that love doesn’t belong in a toxic world. That before you drown yourself in the essence of romance and enchantment, you must eradicate your painful past to clear your mind of negativity and affliction. Some would argue love cannot possibly survive when emerged in chaos, that trudging through the mud together will only leave you both short of your happy endings, that the love you built and the world you made together is bound to inevitably burn.

I guess the daunting question I have to pose is: What is love without strife? How is love grown and nurtured in the absence of pain? I’ve always found the idea of leaning on someone’s shoulder, lying there vulnerable in the eyes of another as tranquil, beautiful. When you rely on your loved one, you unclothe yourself and tear down the barriers that secure your heart, you hand over the custody of your mind and open the gateway to your truth.

I find that falling in love when you’re struggling for stability may not be the most conventional way, but it is the best way. Your relationship is built on the foundations of a trust fall, forcing you to lean back, close your eyes, and find comfort in the protection of your loved one as you relinquish the load of your burden. You’re forced to pull off your mask and communicate your most wanted intrinsic desires. You allow your lover to see beyond the setting sun and find beauty in the dim dusk of the night, the place where your anxiety resides along with all other dreams that have died.

We must remember that there is more to us than wide smiles and the unrestrained laughter that we outwardly portray. We must remember that our entire being is also composed of the difficult days, and manifesting a love concealing that truth will only result in disappointment and dismay when you realize the person that is your world cannot fathom the idea of staying with you in your time of grief.

I believe that love can survive the waves of depression and the journey through chronic illness. I believe that love can sustain itself in the face of a financial burden and in the wake of death.

I believe that true love can conquer all, but I believe that a love built from the foundations of these tribulations is a love that will always rise above all. I believe when you find someone that will love you through the difficult days, it is then when you have found a love that lasts.