Maybe love is…

“Maybe, when it comes down to it, love is not about chasing another human being. Maybe, love is about chasing yourself. Chasing your growth. Chasing your hope.

Maybe love is about learning how to be gentle with yourself, how to believe in the way the Universe has removed certain people from your life. And maybe love grows within you when you learn how to trust your own heart, when you learn how to walk away from the things that have not cared for it. Maybe, love is about learning how to accept that sometimes even beautiful things end, that sometimes the timing isn’t right. And maybe love is about learning that endings aren’t something to regret; maybe it is about learning how to let go, how to appreciate the things you experienced at the hands of caring that were real and hopeful and light in a world that sometimes fails to be soft.

Maybe, love is about learning how to be alone. Maybe it is about learning how to wake up in the middle of the bed. How to make just one cup of coffee in the morning. How to hold your own heart, how to take up space. Maybe there is beauty to be found in falling in love with your growth, in learning how to stop filling voids with other human beings, and instead, in slowly having the courage to heal those voids yourself.

Maybe love is about learning how to be proud of the person you are stretching into, is about embracing the beauty and the depth that exists in trying for something while you are here. And maybe within that, love is about honoring your heart. Maybe the truest, and most honest, extension of love exists in the way you learn how to love yourself, exists in the way you learn how to be compassionate towards the parts of yourself, and your journey, that no one else claps for.

Maybe, love exists in the way you fight to be here, in the way you crash your heart into this world. Maybe, love is about you — being your own strength, being your own safe place. Maybe, when it comes down to it, love is about finally learning how to give yourself the same love you so beautifully give to others. Maybe, love is about embracing the person you are becoming, and believing in your heart, on even your hardest of days.”

– @rainbowsalt