You both build each other

What does it mean to really love someone?⠀
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I woke up this morning to that thought, to the confusion about love and what it means in the world today, how complicated relationships are, how prevalent infidelity is, how imperfect we are as humans.⠀
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Love, I think, is one of those things you can't ever fully grasp. You can understand what it means to desire a person, but it's not simply a longing to be with and around them. It's also the way you grow with them, how you want to learn who you are with them, how you have both comfort and excitement in a relationship with them, how you want to become a better version of yourself just to stand beside them, how you want to choose them, no matter what.⠀
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Love, I think, is about accepting imperfection. It's about understanding that you and your person both come with baggage from the past, but learning to value that person, despite where they've been. It's not about settling, but about pushing both yourself, and your person to grow. It's about building each other up - past insecurities and pain, through doubt and distance, in every moment of evil or anger - and not letting yourself be destroyed in the process, but built. ⠀

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And then you fight to keep building a beautiful life - even when there's temptation, even when people mess up, even when you don't know if you're going to make it through - you still keep fighting.⠀
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And maybe I still don't know what love is, maybe none of us do. But there's a feeling in your chest, a longing to connect with another person - and maybe that's where it starts - simply believing, stepping forward in faith, saying 'I love you.' ⠀
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And fighting to make that definition become a reality every single day.