Love is not a relationship. It is not being with another person so we don’t have to face being alone.

Love is a thousand things, melting into wax forms that delight and surprise us in the most unexpected ways, sparking fire in the wicks of our hearts that we thought faded long ago.

Love is creativity. Freedom. Loneliness. Pure and beautiful chaos. A song. A poem. A storm. A blank canvas about to be splashed with the most vivid oil paints. A flower just about to unfurl and reveal itself to the world, one sweet purple petal at a time.

Love is the subtle scent of honeyed lilacs and wet muddy grass filling the air in springtime, flooding our lungs with fresh hope and nostalgia.

Love is a tear. Leaving everything we’ve ever known behind. Saying no to the sh*t that doesn’t serve our soul.

Love is sitting deep in our pain, and letting everything we’ve never allowed ourselves to feel wash over us, lapping at our feet like crashing ocean waves, letting it cleanse our skin, strengthening us and softening us at the same time.

Love is destroying what we don’t need anymore, and making way for new things so raw, so real and so beautiful, we can’t even imagine them yet.

Love is being honest enough to say all the sh*t we bottled up and prayed would magically go away.

Love is tending to the gossamer buds of our dreams, unraveling them in the palms of our hands like shy chrysanthemums.

Love is sadness. Loss. Brokenness.

Love is the terrifying uncertainty plucking at our skin like sharp guitar strings.

Love is this moment. It is being ballsy enough to show up for whatever unfolds right now.

It is your own heart.

Love is not just about braiding our hands and hearts through another’s.

No, dig deeper, fly higher.

Fall in love with your life—

Make passionate love to loneliness.

Kiss the dripping raspberry soufflé sunset.

Caress your tenderest tears.

Fall head over heels for your wildest dreams.

Make out with this moment.

Go on a date with your pain, your sorrow, your shame.

Be enchanted by a piece of art. The gentlest rain. The jeweled blue sky.

Give yourself

To yourself.

Love this breath.

Because love—

It is your own heart.

Love is here, woven through this moment, whispering in the wind, whether we’re coupled up, single, dating or married,

Whether we’re happy, sad, laughing, failing, anxious or crying,

It doesn’t f*cking matter.

Love is here.

Don’t reach out for it; don’t always try to fill the emptiness with another heart to beat alongside yours—

Love is also the emptiness,

The void

The space between heartbeats

Between breaths.

It is silence

Loneliness

Despair

Agony,

The exquisite places we fear the most.

Love is.

Always.

Love just

Is.

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Relephant Read:

Love was Always Here—A Moment of Unforgettable Beauty.

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Author: Sarah Harvey

Editor: Toby Israel

Photo: Amy Treasure/Unsplash

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