What It Means to Truly Love Her
You don’t love her by saying, “I love you.”
You love her in your touch; you love her by being there for her. You love her by wiping her tears away as her walls come down that she spent years crafting. You love her in the small bits, like when you hold her hand when it’s damp, because she gets nervous when she gets vulnerable.
You love all her imperfections, you love her in all her wrongness - because it’s in those moments when she lets down her shield, and you hold her tighter, that you understand what it means to truly love someone, to be responsible for someone.
When you commit to her - you don’t just say the words.
You understand her value - because when you’re together you feel it. You feel her love, her beauty; how her genuineness can’t be replaced.
When you’re with—when you commit to her—you don’t have one eye wandering at the options. Because you understand that those options are bullshit - it’s all an illusion, it’s just your ego saying, “I want the intangible more,” and your fears saying, “I’m not ready to be so happy, to be vulnerable.”
But in your heart you know you don’t really have another option.
She is the one who is in your heart, and you’re smart enough to know that none of those “options” will truly satisfy you, make you feel inspired, alive or understood.
You don’t feel like you’re a choice in the matter, because quite frankly, she is your dream girl, the one who tears down your walls; the one you hesitantly show that part of you that is dark, vulnerable, and she still loves you. She is the one you let in, because you know she is worth the risk. And you won’t risk losing her because of your pride, fears, ego or selfish ways.
Love is cupping her face gently when you kiss her; listening when she speaks about her dad, whispering words of reassurance in her ear, because you know she isn’t broken, just bent.
Love isn’t shiny and perfect. Love is raw. Love is the 3am fights between people who give a shit, the reddened eyes full of emotion, the intense conversations that make you feel understood, that challenge you, push you to think and be better.
Love is frustrating the shit out of each other and then stopping to gaze at them because you think, “This is the problem I want to have.”
Love is making an effort for it when you have found it.
You’re not worried about the future, because you understand that “more” is an illusion. You want to build this love. You’re not worried about settling, because you know that dating her is not the end of your liberty - it’s the beginning of it.
Love is not filtered. Love is living the fuck out of your life with someone. Love doesn’t get discarded for the next hit. Loving someone means making an effort for them; taking them on a crazy adventure, giving them your time, your understanding.
Loving someone means remaining faithful when things aren’t working in that moment, when you fall on hard times, when you struggle, when there’s doubt.
Truly loving her means putting her first; inspiring her to reach for more, taking the risk to not put one foot out the door, loving her so much that you won’t betray her, because you won’t let your demons ruin this - this raw, perfectly imperfect love.
