For the longest time, there were only two sure things I knew about love: one,
it hurts like hell; and two, it ends.
I knew this because of my parents. For years, I watched them bicker
and rage until the small strand of their marriage finally snapped into a heavy
legal dispute and complicated emotions. I always wondered what sort of
thread wove them together, because if it was love, I wasn’t sure I wanted
that.
I also knew this because of culture. Many people in our society take to
the podium with messages like “getting married young never works” or
“getting married at all never works.” I didn’t know why culture preached
this. Maybe, a few too many celebrity couples have broken up, dashing their
hopes on love ever working. All I knew was that people chose to highlight
the possible oblivion with love, and I was convinced that this was all there
was to it.
But then, I heard a man say that love changes us, and I thought that
maybe this is why love hurts and sometimes ends. Change, like love, is never
a pretty process. It sets us on fire and melts off our imperfections, all with the
intention of making us better people in the end. And becoming better so
often involves facing the monsters we don’t want to face.
After hearing this, I realized that I doubted love because I feared
change. I chose to see the worst in love because I was scared of going
through the fire to refine myself. I didn’t trust it to make me better in the
end. I only thought it would leave me bruised and burned.
Yet, things are different now. I’m no longer afraid of change, and I’m
no longer afraid to love deeply and passionately. I don’t see the oblivion
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waiting with love’s end anymore. I’ve passed through to the other side, and it
taught me some things on love.
I used to doubt love because I knew that it hurt. But love only hurts
because it changes us. This is no indication to doubt it. Rather, this is
indication to believe in it all the more. The things that change us, make us
into better people, are worth believing in, even if they hurt.
Love is raw, gritty, and messy, but it is in the mess that we change.
And maybe, this is the truth we need to highlight more than anything with
love: that it is not here as a condemnation or burden, but rather exists to
preserve us, if only we choose to make it last.
I used to be love’s greatest critic, but that was before it changed me.
Here’s the story of how that happened:
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