Before now, I usually believed that love was the feeling. That's when I see someone, and something in my chest responds fast even before my brain processes it. I chased that feeling three times, and it eventually burned out, and at the end of the day, I left confused about what exactly I had actually been holding.
What I now believe is something less romantic and very simple. Now what I see love to be is a decision that always repeats itself when my feelings wax cold. It is consciously choosing someone's peace over my pride at the very dark hour of the night when I am wrong and tired and I don't want to admit it. And this version of love is very special because it's not common. It's not what is shown to us on social media.
What I am honestly certain about is this thing called unconditional love in a romantic relationship. Not because people do not give it a try. But because I have limits, so do others too. And doing as if I don't have limits, like I am almighty, that is how resentment sets in silently inside something that began in a very genuine way. The circumstances we are in aren't always selfish; they are just honest sometimes.
I have felt loved over and over again. Like someone remembering little details about me without thinking. Someone deciding to stay back when they could have easily left me. And this is part of the things that made me accept that it was real. Not the feeling. I am talking about the staying.
Thank you for reading.
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STOPThat is the experience that allows us to understand what love is. It’s not just a nice feeling, as you say; it’s a conscious choice made for the other person’s sake, when both of you hold on together to what you’ve built.
Love requires a great deal of sacrifice. I’m talking about that kind of love which, as you say, is the complete opposite of what social media portrays. It’s choosing to stay when all you want to do is run away... It’s persevering when you think the best thing would be to leave it all behind and start afresh. That sort of love is built, it’s nurtured... And there are few, very few, who truly wait patiently until the end.