I want to share a few words about love. I’m sharing because I recently read two very popular quotes about love that are not at all how I experience love.

I’m sharing these words not to start some “they’re right and I’m wrong” debate.

But to let anyone out there who right now is looking for love. Or maybe struggling with love.

To know.

That love doesn’t have to look a particular way.

Or fit popular opinion.

Now, before I share my words, here are the ones I read:

“Some of us are not built for casual love. We are meant for someone who promsies the moon and brings back stardust.”

And

“May you find a lover who believes your existence is the best miracle the universe has performed.”

To the first: No thank you. I already have the moon and I’m perfectly capable of bringing back my own stardust.

And to the second: Well, that just sounds like a blueprint for a lovely little co-dependent pedastal.

Now, again, these ways may work for the folks who wrote them. They may work for you. If that is true in either case, awesome!

But if they don’t quite ring true for you, consider this:

Consider meeting a lover who doesn’t believe you’re a miracle, but who does believe.

In you.

Consider a lover who 100% agrees that you can get your own stardust, but knows.

That sometimes.

You need someone.

To hold the ladder so you reach the stars.

I once read something that said true lovers were like two mountains.

Side-by-side.

Not completing each other. But sharing the experience of being alive.

To me, that’s what love is all about. 

It’s not about someone flattering me or promising me.

Rather it’s about someone who joins me as I join them.

In taking in this amazing adventure.

Filled with fabulousness and faults.

Of simply being alive. 

The Practice of Being Alive is a collection of stories about getting through this thing called life.