define love.
I think love is one of the strangest things to define.
People say it is the butterflies in your stomach, the nervousness before seeing someone, the involuntary smile when their name appears on your phone. They say it is the comfort of being around someone, the excitement of getting to know them, or the way an ordinary day somehow becomes a little more interesting just because they are in it.
But is that really love?
How do you define something that seems to mean a thousand different things to a thousand different people? Is it a feeling, a decision, a promise, or perhaps a little bit of everything? And more importantly, how do you know when you have finally found it?
I often wonder how people know when someone is the one. Is there a particular moment when everything suddenly makes sense? Do you wake up one day and realize that this is the person you want beside you for the rest of your life? Or is it something much quieter, something that reveals itself through the smallest, most ordinary moments?
Because I imagine love must be more than just being happy around someone. Happiness is easy to recognize when everything is going well. But what happens when things don’t? What happens when the conversations become difficult, when the excitement settles, when the person you once thought you knew begins to change? What do you do when something doesn’t feel right anymore? Do you stay and try to understand, or do you accept that perhaps loving someone doesn’t always mean you are meant to keep them?
I think that is the part of love that fascinates me the most. How do you distinguish between something worth fighting for and something you are simply afraid to lose? How do you know whether you are being patient or just ignoring the things that hurt you? And how do you keep loving someone without slowly forgetting how to love yourself?
It is strange, really, how a person can enter your life as a complete stranger and eventually become someone you would consider rearranging your entire world for. Someone you would make room for without even questioning the space they take. Someone whose happiness begins to matter in ways you never anticipated. And sometimes, I wonder how something as intangible as love could make a person willing to do all of that without hesitation.
They say it is foolish to believe in something you cannot guarantee. That people change, feelings fade, and forever is a rather ambitious promise to make. Maybe they are right. After all, there is no way of knowing who someone will become ten years from now, or whether the person you love today will still be the person you recognize tomorrow.
But perhaps that is what makes love so vulnerable. You never really get to know the entire person you are choosing. You only get to know who they are today, and somehow, you decide that they are worth discovering again tomorrow.
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I don’t think love should require you to abandon yourself, nor should it ask you to become smaller just to make room for someone else. Perhaps the right kind of love is not about giving up your world entirely, but finding someone who makes you want to share it. Someone who doesn’t make you question whether you deserve to be loved, someone who allows you to grow into yourself while growing alongside them.
And I hope we all find that kind of love.
Not necessarily the kind that makes our hearts race every single day, but the kind that makes us feel safe enough to be ordinary. The kind that survives beyond first impressions, pretty words, and exciting beginnings. The kind where choosing each other remains meaningful even when choosing each other isn’t always easy.
Maybe love is not something you eventually figure out. Maybe it is something you keep learning, because the person you love is never entirely finished becoming who they are.
I don’t know if there is such a thing as one person made specifically for us. I don’t know if soulmates exist, or if forever is something people can truly promise. But I would like to believe that somewhere along the way, we meet someone with whom the uncertainties of life become a little less frightening.
And if that is foolish, then perhaps I don’t mind being a little foolish.
Because think about it. So much of what we do, what we sacrifice, what we dream about, and what we hope to become is somehow connected to love. We want to make our parents proud because we love them. We work towards a better future because we love the people we hope to share it with. We remember places, preserve moments, and hold onto certain versions of ourselves because somewhere in them, there was love.
Perhaps love has always been there, quietly defining the things we consider worth living for.
So, how do you define love?
I don’t think I have an answer yet. But I hope that when I eventually find it, I won’t have to spend all my time wondering whether it is real. I hope it feels like being understood without having to explain every little thing. Like having somewhere to return to without having to lose the home I have built within myself.
And perhaps, one day, when someone asks me what love feels like, I will finally have an answer that doesn’t begin with I think.
Until then, I suppose I will keep believing that there is something beautiful about a world where, despite everything we know about uncertainty, people still choose to love.
