love, love, love and everything in between

I don’t think I’ve ever known how to love in halves. When I love, it consumes me. It settles into my bones, reshapes my days, turns absence into something I can physically feel. It’s ridiculous, really, the way a person can slip into your life and suddenly, their name is stitched into the quietest corners of your mind. How even in their absence, they exist in everything.

I have spent entire days feeling like I swallowed the sun because of a simple text. I have replayed a single moment, one lingering glance, one brush of fingers like it was a secret only we understood. I have let love turn me into someone I don’t recognize, someone who loses sight of themselves in the pursuit of us.

And maybe that’s why I’m afraid of it.

I want love. Of course, I do. But I fear what it takes from me. I fear the way I let it rearrange me, the way it demands space in my mind even when I fight it. I fear how I lose myself in the wanting.

I used to think love would arrive with certainty, that I would just know. That love would be an unshakable thing, a home I could step into without hesitation. But the truth is, love has always been complicated for me. It arrives tangled in longing and doubt, in the push and pull between wanting closeness and fearing what it might cost me.

I’ve had love that felt like a certainty like it was meant to last, only to watch it unravel, slipping through my hands before I even realized I was losing it.And through it all, I’ve wondered, do I ask for too much? Am I too much? Too intense, too overwhelming, too unwilling to settle for something that doesn’t set me on fire? Or am I not enough? Too cautious, too afraid of the fall, too scared to reach out first?

Maybe it’s neither. Maybe it’s just that love, real love, has become something people are afraid of. We are so used to love that is convenient, that is curated, that doesn’t require us to be seen. Love that is easy to walk away from. Love that doesn’t ask us to unravel or be vulnerable.

But I don’t want that. I don’t want love that is comfortable but empty. I don’t want love that only exists in stolen moments, in the in-between, in almosts and what could have beens.I don’t want love that texts me at midnight but forgets me in the daylight. Love that remembers me when it’s lonely but disappears when the world is good to it. Love that calls when it needs comfort but vanishes when I need the same. I don’t want love that thrives in the quiet secrecy of late-night whispers but turns cold in the morning. Love that exists in unsent messages and unfinished thoughts, in maybe we should have and maybe one day.I don’t want love that only reaches for me when it’s convenient. Love that shows up in fleeting moments but never stays. Love that is warm when we’re alone but distant in a crowded room. Love that makes me second-guess, makes me feel like I have to earn it.I have held onto love that was slipping away, convincing myself that if I just tried harder, if I just waited a little longer, maybe it would stay.I don’t want love that leaves me questioning. Love that texts back just enough to keep me hoping. Love that disappears for days and comes back like nothing happened. Love that makes me second-guess myself, that makes me wonder if I’m expecting too much for simply wanting to be chosen fully.I don’t want love that turns cold when I need warmth. Love that is only affectionate when it’s in the mood. Love that stays as long as I am agreeable, easy, undemanding but pulls away the moment I ask for more.

But sometimes, I wonder if I’ve built love into something impossible. If I’ve spent too many nights tracing the outlines of other people’s stories, grand gestures, fate, the kind of love that moves mountains and convinced myself that anything less is not enough.Because love isn’t always fireworks. More often, it’s quiet. It’s the way someone remembers you don’t like tomatoes in your sandwich. It’s the way they send you a picture of the sunset because they know it reminds you of home. It’s reaching for your hand under the table. It’s still showing up when you’re difficult, when you’re distant, when you’re not the easiest person to love.

Or have I deluded myself into believing that love can be both effortless and consuming, that it should arrive fully formed, intense from the beginning, without hesitation or doubt?

And yet, I’ve seen love destroy people. I’ve watched it hollow them out, leave them aching in ways they never recover from. I’ve seen love make people less of themselves, seen them shrink to fit inside someone else’s world. And I wonder…would I survive that? Would I want to?

But still, I believe in love that builds rather than breaks. Love that stretches us, that makes us more rather than less. Love that pulls us apart just enough to put us back together in a way that makes sense. I want a love where I never have to doubt if I am wanted. Where I don’t have to earn tenderness. Where I am chosen, again and again, not just in the moments of passion, but in the moments in between.I want a love that strips away the pretence, the fear, the hesitations. A love that meets me in my rawest form and stays.

Frequently I ask myself do I love the idea of love more than the reality of it? Do I crave the rush, the electricity of being wanted, the giddy, intoxicating high of knowing I am on someone's mind? Or do I want what comes after the steadiness, the choice, the kind of love that lingers when the thrill fades?

Because real love is not just in the wanting. It’s in the choosing. It’s in the staying. It’s in the terrifying, beautiful decision to keep coming back to each other, to the love you’ve built, even when it’s not perfect, even when it’s hard.

I don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of love.

But I want to be.

I want love that is more than longing. Love that stays even when I am difficult, even when I am scared, even when I don’t know how to ask for it. Love that reminds me that fear and love are not opposites and that love is choosing to stay despite the fear.

I write about love not because I understand it, but because I don’t. Because it undoes me. Because I still believe in it, even when I don’t know how to hold it.

Because love, for all its risks, for all its contradictions, is the only thing that has ever made life feel like more.