hayao miyazaki said it best:

“i’ve become skeptical of the unwritten rule that just because a boy and girl appear in the same feature, a romance must ensue. rather, i want to portray a slightly different relationship, one where the two mutually inspire each other to live—if i’m able to, then perhaps i’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.”

“once you have met someone, you never really forget them.”

love is inspiring the other person to reach their full potential, to coat their life in a little layer of hope and ambition, to steal a few of their thoughts and have them meander in your own thoughts as well.

romance isn't the precursor to love. sure it helps, but it's not fully indicative.

love is simply. pure happiness for another's sake, happiness that shakes and spins and spawns joy that makes you wish to live, to laugh more, to jump a little higher and smile a little brighter.

that is all. steady adoration and falling apart, but only to be whole with them once again.

not sure if any of this makes sense, but neither does love.

Love is calling the pharmacy because phone calls make her anxious.

Love is bringing her home a rock because it was just so smooth.

Love is holding her hair back when the medicine makes her sick.

Love is how she stays when money is tight and the sink is full of dirty dishes.

Love is the way she looks at me when we both know I have fucked up.

Love is picking up the half-empty water cups that are not hers.

Love is playing games until two in the morning knowing we both have work tomorrow.

Love is not regretting being tired all day because last night was so much fun.

Love is going to bed early.

Love is an action, a choice.

Love can be big, exaggerated gestures. It can be butterflies in the pit of your stomach and big, gasping lungfuls of air. It can be fireworks and diamond rings and rose petals. It can be so big that it hurts.

But my love is small. It is comfort. It’s the blanket I wrap myself in at the end of the day. It’s my favorite chair, the bed I lie in. It’s my go-to feel-good book. It’s the table I lean on when I start to feel tired. It’s the video I watch when I need to laugh. It’s the pillow I hug when I need to cry. It’s the hand I hold when I feel scared.

Sometimes, love is an explosion – big and loud and passionate and bright, but there is only silence and destruction in the aftermath. I prefer the little pieces of love that fill my life – quiet, soothing, comforting, and never-ending.

Sacrifice, decision making, working against selfishness

and knowing that what's best for one ought to also benefit

the others that surround them, at least so they feel known

we each of us relate this message and we show it when we can

by being there, sharing fun, holding hands through tragedies

and teaching, guiding one another,

into and through a good adulthood.

sometimes feeling let down, drudging

through another person's flaws

and trying not to wound one's self

through exposure to those truths

that must be accepted,

cannot be corrected,

and exist as a part of a tapestry

all of which is purposeful

and all of which has beauty.

sometimes it is work

sometimes nothing's gained

feeling worried, wrong, and useless

feeling often-times, betrayed

and others can't predict that, no.

though we all know the game,

when you tie yourself to something else,

the stronger often wins the trade.

But the comfort in the cold of night

of another body breathing silently,

the constant motion, without intention

is astounding in simplicity

and brings a warm belonging feeling

that comes with familiarity,

friendship, love, togetherness

bond us all,

effortlessly.

all of nature

perfect cycle of taking and giving

fervently recycling the other's energy

forever

deeply intertwined

a big love-making

In our balanced world of Yen and Yang, nothing can be truly experienced without an opposition. The challenge, learning the counterparts.

To understand life, you must have experienced death.

No, the true meaning of life will not be clear before you can look back on its entirety.

Knowing what is false guides us to truth. Assumptions make you the fool.

The value of good is learned from being imperfect, your ill wills, your mistakes.

Love, however, is an ever-changing commodity.

It can be torn and tested, molded and altered.

When spoken, it can evoke war or bring peace.

Consummate love is only known from loss.

Possessive defeat or deprivation will not complete you only the demise of defined self.

Your identity now altered from encountering another.

The id you once knew will never return.

The other became part of you.

Love is losing control, and falling on the flat surface you’re standing on. When you fall in love, you become chemically imbalanced to stand steady, unable to alter the simplest words you’d used your entire life, saying, “Hello,” to the one you loved, without shaking to the cores of your existence.

Love is madness in your state of mind where you question your sanity. It causes you confusion, this inner crisis of your solo dependence on another soul, and their reaction or behavior towards you. You feel powerless because you gave control to someone else over your life, having no clue as to how to subdue the raging feelings inside of your head and beating heart.

Love is peace and invigorating like the blossoms of fall trees. Love warms and softens your heart to overbearingly care for another person more than yourself.

Love makes you think you can fly when you’re falling down from the sky wingless. Therefore, your life forever changes for better or worse whenever you fall in love, for you cannot even explain how the tiniest things make you feel absurdly insane.

Someone told us that love is blind, and for some reason reason we believed it. Love is not the absence of sense. It doesn't plunge you into a darkness that can only be alleviated by inner light. Someone told as that love makes us do silly things, and for some reason we believed it. It doesn't take away your judgement and turn you into a meathead.

I wager that love has perfect vision. It is only through love that we can see both a future with someone and a future without someone at the same time. It is love that shows up at the crossroads we strand ourselves in, and points us in the direction that will soothe our spirits. It is love that teaches us faith when we hand over our hearts to those around us, and love that teaches us how to properly bandage those hearts when they've been mistreated. It is love that collects the memories and plays them back in the absence of their subjects to prolong the warmth we felt when we made them. It is love that teaches us our worth, even as it struggles to remind us to put our dreams before the expectations of others. It is love that takes care of us on lonely nights when all you have is thoughts for company.

So, what is love? Even when we misunderstand it and misinterpret its messages and choose to stumble around with our eyes closed and hide behind the pretense that "love led me into this wall," love is always right.

Love. It's a word whose exact definition is elusive, and whose meaning can't quite be placed. We put it into so many categories and subsections. But ultimately, love is a feeling that can't be put into words, because though love seems to be different every time-divided, it is really united, one and the same. That's just what I think love is.

I use to think I understood love, even knew it. I used to think love was singular, clean without difficulties. It’s always the curve balls you are thrown, that opens your eyes. Love is the one thing we will never quite understand. I must say, I’m glad as humans we can’t, that way we can’t destroy it. Love is so resilient it appears in the ugliest of places and situations, unexpected, without reason and always untainted.. You never ask for it, can never buy it and nothing you have can replace it.. We often miss it, because of the restrictions we place on it. And sometimes love has to be shared, it evolves, it moves, it moves us, it moves on. It even proves to us, it never was, even when we thought it was or it could be, or would stay.. Love is what it needs to be, when it needs to be, for who it needs be, however long it takes. Its the purest unpredictable feeling you ever know.